Ah, the familiar sounds of the locavore. The attitudes towards organic and local products have dominated the past decade or so of food opinion, so it only seemed inevitable that they would intersect with the paralleled craft beer trend. Our news this week highlights the local farmers who are jumping onto the beer-wagon by producing locally grown, tenderly-cared-for malted barley and hops, for the guilty beer drinker in all of us.
Local maltsters in states like Massachusetts, New York, and North Carolina are producing malted barley for their regional breweries at a minuscule level compared to their national and international counterparts. Still, their efforts have offered a glimmer of hope to local farmers looking to sustain themselves within a new niche, one that supplies the burgeoning craft beer market. And it's not just barley. Hops cultivation is also seeing a resurgence in farming communities beyond California and Oregon as farmers in Michigan, Wisconsin, and New York follow the craft beer lead. These efforts are fairly new for small farmers, so workshops, trainings, kick starter funds, and economic stimulus money are all stepping in to support them as they sew those extra "organic" and "local" badges onto the craft beer sash.
It's obvious that the locavore and craft beer scene would mingle at even the most basic level. Brewers and beer drinkers (2 Brewths claim to be both) understand the importance of good ingredients in beer, so the quality standpoint of local maltsers and hop growers is a given. Also, if you are a home brewer, you might have gotten to that point in the hobby where you want to take more control over the brewing process. You might say, 'screw it, I can grow these hops all by myself.' If you've been there, you're only a step or two away from hand-blown glass bottles. Craft breweries might see their local collaboration with farmers as another step towards truly owning the brewing process.
Finally, helping local farmers is an extremely positive side-effect of the craft beer trend. If you grew up in a dwindling farming community, you understand the current situation that small farmers find themselves in. More local involvement would be a boon to those struggling farming families. Plus, adding local character and community relationships to craft beer makes it that much more craftier (that is the point after all, right?) But do we have to dig through all of our beers, food, and emotionally stable sheep's wool to feel good about what and how we drink? (Check out a great Freakonomics podcast on locavorism when you're done with our rant.)
That's the question for you today. What are your thoughts on the local breweries in and around your area? Do you feel that drinking local beer from local ingredients is important? And do you have any allegiances, blind or otherwise, to your local brews, kind of like a New Yorker just has to pull for the Giants (you poor, poor bastards)? Share your local beer experiences with us and remember to tell us where you are writing from. Now would be a great opportunity to plug your local beer scene- let the solicitations begin!
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| Cutting out the middleman- From land to liver. |
Near Fort Collins is a place called High Hops that grows their own..... hops! Recently they actually expanded into a brewery, so that's pretty cool. Other than that, Nick would know more about the sourcing for local ingredients.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have absolutely nothing against the local ingredient scene, I don't necessarily seek it out- but I think a lot of that has to do with the beer making process. For example, malts are roasted and hops are dried and compressed before they go into a boiling vat of water and cook- so from the freshness/ food safety perspective, I'm not too worried where those products are coming from. However, the end product does have a perishability, or at least a peak freshness, so that I would want nice & fresh & local at the tap room at the brewery itself. I also read in Zymurgy that much like sourdough, sour beers are now getting into specific flavor profiles that are associated with a geographical region, and that's pretty cool too!