Barrel-Aging Programs Buck Trendy Industry

One of the realities of modern craft beer is fads and trends. There are so many breweries that it's tough to get noticed. In that scenario, a lot of consumers are fixated on what's new and shiny. Maybe this was the inevitable result of a maturing industry. Maybe.

You see the theme playing out in beer bars, bottleshops, taprooms and pubs. Customers who pass through those doors commonly ask for the newest thing, whether it's a fruit infused hazy, a kombucha pilsner or some other strange one-off.

Most brewers, whether they like it or not, have little choice in the matter. If they want to stay in business, they've got to play the game. That means spending an exorbitant amount of time focused on developing fancy new beers and the packaging that sells them. 

What suffers is the work that once went into refining beers over a period of months and years. When you're focused on keeping abreast of the coolest new trend, you don't invest the time or energy in messing around with what we once knew as reliable standards. 

It's not so hard to see why flagship beers are an endangered species. There are still quite a few of them around, but they don't have the appeal or command the sales numbers they once did. A big part of the reason established craft breweries are suffering is that people don't buy flagships anymore. That stuff is old hat, not cool. 

All of this vaguely became part of the discussion at Thursday evening's Barrel-Aged Beer and Whiskey Seminar at House Spirits/Westward Whiskey in Southeast Portland. It was one of four seminars held as part of Portland Beer Week. Breakside's Ben Edmunds led a group discussion that included Matt Lincecum, founder of Seattle's Fremont Brewing, Daniel Hynes, manager of Breakside's barrel program, and Andrew Tice of House Spirits. 

Barrel-aged beers definitely have a place in the trendiness of craft beer. They're rare and usually expensive, prerequisites for capturing the imagination of craft fans who sneer at stuff that's easy to find and cheaper. That $20 four-pack of hazy IPA isn't as good as an established IPA that sells for $12 a six-pack. But never mind. It's new and rare and spendy. Gotta have it. 

A big difference between the flood of trendy stuff being dumped on the market is that barrel-aged beers are hard to make. They require meticulous planning, time and expertise to pull off well. Even then, they sometimes bomb. Expensive equipment and a nice facility are great, but you simply cannot make these beers easily. Putting beer in a barrel can produce great or dreadful results. 

Some of the considerations involved include the type and quality of barrels used, sugar content of the beer, type of yeast, aging time, temperature, monitoring while aging to evaluate progress, knowing whether to blend vintages and so on. Barrel-aged beers are a highly artisan endeavor, requiring skills and knowledge acquired over many years. They also require a lot of patience. 

Contrast that with your average trendy beer, often a half-baked concept. They can be highly creative, but usually aren't very refined. They're here today, gone tomorrow, so they never really have a chance to mature. Barrel beers can also be creative, even half-baked, but they usually aren't a one-and-done proposition and actually do grow up in a lot of cases.

It wasn't so long ago that brewers focused on producing a few flagship beers to sell in their pubs and maybe in packaged form. There weren't a lot of choices, which meant the primary differentiating factor was the quality and evolution of the beers. We've lost a bit of that in the frenzy over what's new and trendy, I think.

But I take pleasure in knowing there are barrel aging programs out there that have something in common with the focus on quality that once dominated this industry. Maybe we'll at some point return to a situation where that's the industry norm, not the exception. Maybe.

Note: Special thanks to Ezra Johnson-Greenough, who offered me a place in the seminar and encouraged me to attend. 

Portland Beer Week: The Educational Seminars

One of the most amusing things I experience on my beer travels is beer fans who know little or nothing about the beers they are drinking, the breweries where the beers were made or the processes involved in making them. What these folks need is a little education.

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There are a variety of ways to get education, including brewery tours, homebrew clubs, etc. Some festivals include an element of education, often on how the brewing process works. Portland Beer Week has featured educational seminars for several years. That effort continues in 2019.

"I love making education part of Portland Beer Week," event organizer, Ezra Johnson-Greenough, told me by email. "It's always fun to learn more and hear brewers and other experts bounce thoughts and ideas off each other. I also think it helps make Beer Week more than just a drinking exercise."

Portland Beer Week is, of course, mainly a drinking exercise. Ten days worth of drinking and partying, June 7-19. Check out the calendar. Each day is packed with excursions into the bowels of the local craft beer scene. Don't drink too much!

The educational piece is represented by a series of seminars spaced more or less evenly during the first week. They are:

Future of the Craft
Sunday, June 9th, 7-9 pm
Migration Brewing, 2828 NE Glisan St.
This seminar will consider the state of the industry, which is being bounced around by changing consumer demand, increasing competition, flat or declining growth, hostile distribution systems, corporate buyouts and even cannabis. Where does the industry go from here?

Panelists will include Tony Roberts (co-director of the Oregon Brewers Guild), Sam Holloway (Crafting A Strategy), Ben Edmunds (Breakside Brewery), Ben Parsons (Baerlic Brewing) and Jason Notte Flint (beer biz writer).

"I designed this seminar to create a discussion/debate that I would personally like to hear," Johnson-Greenough said. "It should be lively."

Tickets are $12 and include a Migration beer. Get them here.

The Branding Bunch: Here's a Story
Tuesday, June 11th 5:30-8 pm
Function PDX, 919 Northwest 23rd Ave
A look at brewery branding and storytelling, as practiced by industry marketing pros. Get insight from designers and brand managers on how to develop your brand's story from social media to point-of-sale.

Panelists will include: Briana Romancier (Coates Kokes & Pelican Brewing Co.), Jeremy Backer (Level Beer & Ex Novo), Michelle Humphrey (pFriem Family Brewers), Ashley Jhaveri & Chrispy (ZZEPPELIN). Moderated by Michael Perozzo.

"This particular seminar is really about how breweries are learning to leverage their unique stories into a brand, and then how to communicate that effectively through social media and branding," Johnson-Greenough said. "Michael will do a great job guiding the discussion."

TIckets are $12 and include a drink ticket for a Baerlic Brewing beer at the bar. Buy them here.

Barrel-Aged Beer and Whiskey Seminar
Thursday, June 13th, 5:30-8 pm
House Spirits Distillery, 65 SE Washington St
House Spirits and Westward Whiskey present the annual Barrel-Aged Beer Seminar, which veers into whiskey, its similarity to beer and how integral it is in barrel-aged beer production. Attendees will get an inside look at the process from whiskey wash to barrel-aging.

Special guests/panelists: Ben Edmunds (Breakside Brewery), Matt Lincecum and Matt Lincoln (Fremont Brewing) and Andrew Tice (House Spirits/Westward Whiskey).

"This is going to be really fun," Johnson-Greenough said. "Making a barrel-aged beer isn't as simple as filling a barrel with beer. Also, many don't realize how similar whiskey is to beer or that House Spirits is really a brewery first. Anyone who geeks out about this stuff you will enjoy this class."

Tickets are $35. Attendees will sample two barrel-aged beers from each brewery and single malt whiskeys from Westward. Buy tickets here.

Sour & Wild Ale Seminar: Coolship Edition
Friday, June 14th, 5:30-8 pm
Von Ebert Brewing Glendoveer, 14021 Northeast Glisan St
This annual tasting and educational event explores the process of making sour beer with wild yeasts and bacteria. The focus this year is on brewers who use coolships...open-top vessels made to cool wort (unfermented beer) out in the open where live yeast and bacteria found in the environment can make its way into the sweet wort.

Joining Von Ebert's Sean Burke: Trevor Rogers (De Garde Brewing), Shilpi Halemane (Logsdon Farmhouse Ales) and Garrison Schmidt (Block 15 Brewing).

"I'm always interested in how brewers produce so-called "sour" beers," said Johnson-Greenough.  "There are multiple methods, theories and techniques. Why is coolship beer trendy? Why are brewers increasingly drawn to local flora and fauna? I'm not sure all consumers care how their beer got to taste sour or funky, but connoisseurs of the style do."

Tickets are $35 tickets and include rare/premium beer tastings with De Garde, Logsdon and Block 15. Get them here.

I'm not generally a fan of overpriced festivals, beer dinners and related events. There are more than enough of those kinds of events around. But these educational seminars offer worthwhile content for what seems like a reasonable cost. I hope people will support these things.

As for ticket availability, I understand they will have tickets available until the last minute, unless an event sells out...which evidently isn't likely. The exception to that rule may be the Sour & Wild Ale seminar, which has been fairly popular and may sell out. A word to the wise.