How local is your beer? Craft brewers increasingly employ seasonal, regionally-grown products

Mmmmm, beer. That was the philosophy of Homer Simpson, and many Americans would agree. One of the great food and drink stories in recent years has been the rapid rise of craft beer. Today, independents represent about eight percent of total U.S. beer sales, and the number of breweries just topped 3,000, a level not seen since the 1870s.

With thousands more in the works, that number is likely to keep going up. So have we reached our saturation point? The Brewers Association, a nonprofit trade group, certainly doesn’t think so — their staff beer economist (best title ever) calls it a “craft beer non bubble.” The organization points out there are 7,000 wineries in the U.S., yet very little talk of a wine bubble.

The Brewers Assoc. charts NASDAQ against beerCraft beer is in many ways a reflection and driver of the local food movement. In an age of massive corporate brands, people are thirsty for experiences like riding your bike to the local brewpub and quaffing a draft produced on-site. The beer boom has not only created jobs, but also played a key role in the rise of local restaurant scenes and neighborhood revitalization.

Yet how local is your beer? Most wines are grown on local estates, yet the ingredients in beer often come from a catalogue. It can be difficult to find locally-grown hops, barley and other ingredients in the U.S. and Canada. North American hop production is concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, while a lot of barley comes from the Dakotas.

That's starting to change as brewers seek out more local ingredients — organic honey, fresh fruit or local “wet” (green) hops. There are also an increasing number of breweries trying to source items such as local barley, and that’s helping to fuel the production of these plants.

Brewing innovation in Philly

Dock Street Brewing Co., a brewpub on bustling Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia, has always prided itself on sourcing locally — the beef for their burgers comes from Lancaster County, and during the warm-weather months the menu bursts with inventive salad specials and veggie-heavy pizzas. That ideology also extends to their ever-evolving roster of beers.
 
According to Dock Street's Marilyn Candeloro, they purchase almost all of their brewing ingredients domestically (certain recipes do demand the milder English hops). And, when they can, they narrow their food shed even further, incorporating products from Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and even West Philly itself.
 
Every fall, Dock Street brews their wildly popular Satellite Espresso Stout using locally roasted organic fair trade beans from Standing Stone Coffee Company in Huntingdon, PA. They've also teamed up with the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia on the limited-run “A Beer Four All Seasons” series.
 
“For those beers, some ingredients were sourced from the Four Seasons,” says Candeloro. “It could have been from their rooftop garden or a local purveyor that they work with. For the 'Spanish Fly,' they grew the verbena, the ginger and the wormwood for us.”
 
Dock Street Brewing Company’s Whiter Shade of PaleAnd if that's not local enough for you, last year Dock Street tapped a batch of “Born and Raised.”
 
“Around fall, all the brewers do a fresh-hopped beer, because that's when the harvest is,” explains Candeloro. “It turns out our neighbor Frank Winslow — who works at Yards Brewing as their quality assurance brewer — grows his own hops at home, and last year he couldn't use them because he didn't have enough to make a dent in a Yards recipe. So, he gave us the hops. Most often, you're overnighting them from Washington or Oregon, so it was really awesome that we got them right around the corner.”
 
Of course all this experimentation is enabled by an increasingly beer-obsessed customer base boasting adventurous palettes.
 
“We have a great audience for the beers we put out,” insists Candeloro. “They're very receptive, and give us great feedback…People like to connect dots. With the espresso, they like that it's made right in PA. It makes them proud to drink it.”
 
In a couple weeks, Candeloro herself will drive out to New Jersey to pick up a truckload of white and yellow peaches. They'll be roasted in the Dock Street ovens, and thrown into a batch of “Whiter Shade of Pale,” a berliner weisse due in late August.

Beer explosion in the Twin Cities

In 2013, 14 new craft breweries opened in the Twin Cities. So did Minneapolis’ first micro-distillery, Norseman Distillery. Many of the startups take pride in incorporating local ingredients into their creations. While crafting its first batch of Strawberry Rhubarb Gin this spring, Scott Ervin, Norseman’s founder and head distiller, put out a call on Facebook for more local rhubarb.
 
Summit Brewing Company, which has been open since 1986 and is often credited with introducing microbrewing to the Twin Cities, has long been offering seasonal and specialty brews featuring homegrown ingredients. Last summer, Summit’s State Fair IPA, available only in its booth at the Minnesota State Fair, incorporated corn and wild rice from Minnestalgia Foods, raw wildflower honey from Bare Honey and Cascade hops from Hippity Hops Farms. 
 
Mark Stutrud of Summit Brewing CompanyBack in 2010, Summit brewed an Imperial Pumpkin Porter with organic pumpkins grown on the Wisconsin farm of a packaging line employee. This year’s brew in Summit’s ongoing Unchained Series, Herkulean Woods, is being made with maple syrup from Wild Country in Lutsen, Minn., and spruce tips from Iowa.
 
Summit has also “worked with Rahr Malting in Shakopee as our primary maltster since the early days of our brewery,” explains Carey Matthews, Summit’s marketing coordinator. “They are using malt from North America and doing the malting on site at their Minnesota facility.”
 
“We try to partner with Minnesota companies as much as possible,” adds Matthews. “We value working with our neighbors and contributing even more to the local economy.”
 
Matthews regrets, however, that there aren’t barley or hops farms in Minnesota that can support large scale commercial brewing needs like Summit’s. Still, for home brewers who want to volunteer, the Longfellow Community Garden in Minneapolis has a plot solely devoted to growing hops. Later this summer, the gardener-brewers will reap their reward.
 
The brainchild of Andrew Schmitt, executive director of the Minnesota Beer Activists, the community hops garden was planted last year with donated cuttings now growing on 16-foot arbors (donated by Hippity Hops) and an aluminum-cabling-and-twine trellis to hold them aloft. To water the hops, volunteers created a rainwater catchment system that collects precipitation off nearby buildings.
 
“Beer is fundamentally a community beverage,” says Schmitt. “With this hops garden, we’re extending the community aspect of beer right down to how the hops are grown.”
 
“Everyone is excited about brewing beer with hops this fall that are fresh, right off the plant,” he adds. “I would love to see our community hops garden start a movement in other cities.”

Canada's craft beer culture

Toronto, Ontario is a city where it’s not hard to find a unique craft brew. Over the past few years, brewers have been popping up from the west to the east, with most neighborhoods now having a brewery to call its own.