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The Demand for Microbrews in a Competitive Market

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Many are amazed at the head of steam the trend of good, quality beer has built up in recent years.  For many home brew entrepreneurs, the increasing demand for microbrews and quality beers has made their dreams come true.  The market seems to show little sign of slowing down.  More and more breweries are opening every year at the craft and microbrew level, and even the big companies are trying to compete and keep their formidable chunk of the beer market.  Well, there will always be those who want the cheapest of schwill.  But more and more people want something more out of their beer: nutrition, flavor, and real tradition.

New Belgium

Let’s start with some definitions.  Microbreweries are considered those breweries that produce less than 15,000 barrels a year.  Microbrews also tend to focus on producing the highest quality beer, and in the U.S., this also qualifies most of them as craft breweries.  Unlike bigger breweries, the eye towards quality means that beer is actually made with real barley, hops, and yeast.  The addition of rice and corn found in the cheapest schwill are not found in microbrews.  Although this means an increased cost of up to 60% that of mainstream beers, microbrews manage to do quite well in a consistently shrinking beer market.  Microbrew sales consistently have risen 40% in recent years, with new breweries popping up with regionally-based fans all over the country.  In order to study the methods of the micro breweries success, lets look at one of the biggest success stories.

One beer manufacturer that has risen above the qualifier for microbrews while still maintaining its craft brewery status is New Belgium.  With its very popular flagship beer, Fat Tire, New Belgium has continued in the tradition of craft brewing excellence, even while exponentially increasing its production.  For those interested in the business of beer, New Belgium is a great company to study.  With well-studied brewing expertise they have managed time and time again to upgrade their brewery production without sacrificing quality.

One undeniable aspect of New Belgium’s success is ingenuity and green production techniques.  With a commitment to sustainable production methods, New Belgium has merged ideology with efficiency and some crackin’ good outside the box thinking.  Since 1999, the New Belgium brewery has been powered from 100% renewable energy sources.  30% of the energy that is used to manufacture is harvested from the biodegradation of their own spent grains, and the rest comes from wind power, bought off the grid of the power company with specific earmarking for wind farms.  With other companies scrambling to attain the reputation of being “green”, New Belgium is an example of authentic green thinking and how well green marketing can work if it isn’t just all talk.

Perhaps one reason why New Belgium has been able to achieve such success is that the company is, in a large part, owned by its operators.  After only one year working for New Belgium, employees are given part ownership of the company and a brand new shiny red bicycle.  One aspect of their business which struck me as phenomenal, was their transparent finances policy.  According to their website:

“And, like all responsible business owners, it’s important to know your bottom line, barrels, and books. Meet New Belgium’s practice of open-book management: a policy of fiscal transparency throughout the company that encourages a community of trust and mutual responsibility.”

It seems that finally, there is a precedent for honesty, ingenuity, and integrity in successful business.

In an ever expanding market, it only makes sense that microbreweries are a good investment choice, even in the troubling times of today’s economy.  Even in the toughest of times, people of all economic strata seldom give up the solace of a fine beer.  But more than that, craft brewing is part of a culture that honors fair dealing, hard work, and cultural tradition.  All of this is evident in the policies of one of the most successful craft breweries of the last 20 years – and it can happen again, maybe for you.

Related article: Kegerators.com’s Top 5 Names in Domestic Beer

Health Benefits of Organic Beer

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As the world we live in becomes more and more toxic, eating (and drinking) organic is the most fundamental change towards health that we can effect in our daily lives. With new poisons in the air and the water every day, it only makes sense to cut down on the poisons in any way you can. For those of you new to the concept of Organic foods, it is food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. If it is food that contains many different ingredients, such as beer, then chemical additives and preservatives are also excluded from the product. Organic food and beer help your body to process that food and drink more efficiently – with less of these toxins involved, your liver functions more smoothly. A healthy liver is something that every beer fan should promote in their lifestyle. Although organic products cost a little more, the health benefit – and the taste – is well worth it.

It all started with “health food”. A trend started in the 1960’s to really look closely at how our food was made. People started to discover that most of the food at the grocery store was either sprayed with poisonous pesticides or jam packed full of weird preservatives and chemicals. The Health food store quickly became an important part of the daily routine of eating healthy. Foods found there were local, fresh, or made in a way that was “closer to nature”. As far as beer is concerned, it was the health food stores that first started to carry microbrews, and especially organic beers.

It is true that organic products cost more, and organic beer is no exception. The question is, what price are you willing to pay for food that has never been sprayed with poisons and other chemicals? There is probably no better way to spend your money than on the quality of the food you eat and the beer you drink. Buying organic supports farmers and brewers that have a commitment to making the world a better place – and not poisoning the earth or you. If you consider the grand scale of large scale commercial farming operations in this country, we are lucky that the organic food markets aren’t more expensive.

A fundamental mindset change must take place to enter organic eating into your diet. You must realize that you don’t want to die young, you want to be healthy your entire life, and you are committed to enhancing your quality of life. Organic foods are more flavorful and some studies show that organic foods carry significantly higher levels of vitamins and nutrients. Make no mistake, beer is food. The Soil Association Scotland has shown that organic produce contains between 10 and 15 per cent more phenolics (compound that may fight cancer) than non organic. In addition to being grown pesticide and chemical free, organic products also lack the preservatives and additives that many non-organic products have.

I have been a home brewer for many years, and the change to organic, for me, was an easy one. I made the change to brewing organic beer before I started eating organic. Consistently, I found that organic beers tasted much better than non-organic ones, and that the quality of water used to make the beer was also a very important factor. Luckily for me, some friends in a nearby town told me of an organic home brew supply shop where everything was organic! I quickly became friends with the collective members there and, with access to a large variety of organic malt, extract, and hops, I was well on my way towards organic brewing. The Seven Bridges Cooperative brew store has a healthy mail order business, and you can check them out and place orders for organic brewing ingredients online at www.breworganic.com.

We are lucky that we live in this golden age of micro brews, where local and even organic beer is available across the nation. Microbrew organic beer can be found at Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and, of course you local health food co-op or small business. As always, drink it in good health.

A Guide to Strange and Unique Beer

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One of the greatest benefits of home brewing, and of the golden age of micro brew that we are currently living in, is the ability to create new and unusual brews.  The freedom that comes with experimentation in this realm knows no bounds except those of one’s own imagination and ability.  With practice and planning, even these limits will increase, as the breadth of knowledge in these fields is naturally increasing.  As the golden age of the micro brew expands to even more unique and inventive realms, we are even seeing the list of strange and unique beer that is commercially available expand.

Micro brewers have been experimenting with unique herbal beers well into the origins of beer.  Numerous recipes are available for your edification in books such as Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers by Stephen Harrod Buhner, and Wild Fermentation by Sandy Katz.  Sacred and Healing Herbal beers is by far the most influential book on brewing that I have had the pleasure to read.  My whole career as a hobby home brewer has, in fact, been based on this book, as has that of many home brewers that I know.  It is considered in some circles to be the “bible” of strange and unique beer.

To the beer drinkers of the United States, though, even something as simple as a Belgian White Ale is often considered exotic.  While the yeasts of such ales certainly lend themselves to distinction, I wouldn’t call them unique beers.  To qualify for this category, we must take into consideration the following:

Does the beer have a unique buzz or side effect?

And;

Does the taste of the beer differ due to an admixture?

Yeast has an important effect on the taste of any beer, but this only one aspect of beer production.  The quality of the water, the types and mixtures of malts and hops, and especially herbal admixtures affect both of these factors greatly.  Inventive processes can also enhance the taste of the beer. 

Water is the highest presiding factor over the quality of a beer; it makes up roughly 90% of the beer.  I have found that the best beer I have ever been able to brew used as its base pure Alaskan glacier melt water.  The list of all-organic ingredients helped, I’m sure, although other organic ales I have drunk have almost lived up to the taste of that ale, most notably the Fishtale Organic Ale.  I would call these beers of the highest quality, and the Winter Wolf Stout that I made with the Alaskan Glacier melt water “unique” due to the process of collecting the water.

There is one commercially produced ale that I have discovered to venture into the realm of herbal admixtures, although I am sure more are to come.  I am speaking of New Belgium’s Springboard Ale.  It is an innocuous sounding name, but this ale is truly a unique herbal concoction brewed up in the guise of a Seasonal beer: a Belgian Ale with the bite of wormwood and the tonic properties of Goji berries.

The Springboard ale boldly forges ahead to reclaim space for herbal beer brewers.  Ever since the German beer purity laws, or Reinheitsgebot, adopted in 1516, and even before, the powers-that-be have sought to implement control over what manner of inebriation is allowed to the general public.  The only ingredients allowed by law in ale were water, malt, and yeast… hops were added to the list later, by popular demand.  The only other brew known to contain an active amount of wormwood ingredient is the infamous Absinthe, outlawed in the U.S. and many other countries, but still sought after and made by high class moonshiners in the United States, and, I am sure, in other countries in which its production has been outlawed.

Before the release of Springboard, the United States saw a proliferation of specialty ales – some of which contained herbs, others of which contained specialty yeasts.  A variety of Belgian Ales as well as Fraoch Heather Ale paved the way for the release of New Belgium’s Springboard by exposing the beer fans of the U.S. to more and more strange and unique beers.

In my personal experience, home brewers have been the first to experiment with wild and imaginative combinations in strange and unique beer.  I have drunk of the “Orge-Clops-Itar Ale”, containing the herb eyebright, which is regarded as a beneficial tonic for eyesight.  The brewer stated to me that the inclusion of eyebright was to help with night vision and goblin sightings.  Another unique home brew was the “Skull Crushing Hammer”, a beer made with the herb Yarrow.  The herb is said to have immense healing qualities when applied in a salve to open wounds, but when ingested, has inebriatory qualities that enhance the effect of alcohol.

Amongst home brewers is probably the best way to expose one’s self to an amazing variety of strange and unique beers.  It may not be the easiest to find home brewers bent on such strange brews, but it will certainly be a rewarding endeavor.  It might be worthwhile to enquire at your local home brew supply store about some of the “crazier” brewers that come into the shop.

When home brewing was outlawed with prohibition, it took another 50 years before the state repealed the ban on home brew, and now, finally, craft brewing is overtaking the ground it had lost over 200 years ago.  Thanks to the home brew revival, authors like Stephen Harrod Buhner and Sandy Katz, and bold brewers like New Belgium, we are sure to see a revival on the field of strange and unique beers.