Ask Your Local Brewery, Question #1: What Has Been the Most Influential Beer Of Your Career?
Kelly Taylor, KelSo and Heartland
A few beers from Sierra Nevada have influenced me throughout my life but if I had to pick one, I think Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale has been, since my homebrewing days back in the early 1990s, a beer worthy of emulation and repeated (attempted) replication. I first tried to brew this beer in 1990 in my college dorm room in San Diego—oh so many years ago, when there was only one brewery—on a hot plate, irritating some in the dorm hall (What is that smell?) while attracting others (Are you brewing again? Can I taste it?). Sadly, fermentation controls were not my forte at the time, so the beer got a little hot. In the end, it was drinkable, but not a successful clone, so I tried again. Getting the malt balance, effervescence of bottle conditioning, and the hops just right was tricky. I think they have done a spectacular job keeping that beer true to its origins, and to this day its a production miracle to me, given their expanded distribution and footprint over the years.
Heather McReynolds, Sixpoint
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think the beers that most influenced me were those of Brasserie Caracole: Saxo, Troublette, Caracole, and the rest. I realize it’s not as sexy-sounding as listing Cantillon or 15-year-old Thomas Hardy, but I’ll explain. As an undergrad at the University of Florida, I was really bored with the offerings of Miller Lite and the like at keg parties, and the Natural Light my dad had at home wasn’t any better! (Don’t worry, he’s since become a craft beer drinker!) When I turned 21, my friends and I started frequenting the only good beer bar in town, Stubbies, and I began to gravitate towards these “expensive” $6 and $7 Belgian beers. And they blew my mind! The complex flavors I tasted in Caracole and other Belgian beers were a complete 180 from any other beers I’d ever had, and they intrigued the hell out of me. They completely opened up my ideas of what beer could be. Long story short, I fell in love with craft beer, went on to manage that beer bar, and eventually, made it up to Brooklyn to become the Brewing Manager for Sixpoint. And it all started with Brasserie Caracole.
Patrick Morse, Flagship Brewing
It would be hard to say any beer has influenced my life more than Harpoon IPA. Being from New England this was a go-to beer when I started really enjoying craft IPAs—long before American-hopped IPAs were fashionable—but the real reason Harpoon is influential is because this beer taught me how to be a good brewer. My first brewing job was at Harpoon in Vermont and I was making the IPA at least 3-5 days a week, 250 barrels a day. Aside from learning how to physically brew it, what really stood out to me was a ruthless emphasis on consistency and freshness. High standards that have stuck with me throughout my career. Harpoon IPA still influences the way I both taste and brew Flagship every day. To me it’s a benchmark.
Damian Brown, The Bronx Brewery
Good things tend to happen while drinking beer outside in a pool. I remember being at a pool party with one of my brothers at a friend’s house outside of Nashville back in 2002 when I had one of those revelatory, epiphanic experiences I’m sure everyone has had at some point. I remember being confused; I couldn’t quite figure out what I was drinking—pretty sure it was a beer bottle in my hand, but I hadn’t tasted anything else like it before. Dark, roasty, bitter, rich, complex. It blew my fucking mind and pretty much single-handedly turned me on to craft beer. It was Sierra Nevada’s Porter. A few years of homebrewing, slaving away as an assistant brewer, the UC Davis Master Brewers Program and a few more years finding a business partner (thanks, Chris!) and asking everyone I knew for money to start a brewery and here we are at The Bronx Brewery on East 136th Street making and drinking pale ales!
Ethan Long, Rockaway Brewing
To answer this, I need to defer to my favorite beer of 1991: Red Hook’s ESB. I was living in San Francisco at the time and was fond of my local dive bar, the Uptown, on the corner of 17th and Capp Streets in the Mission. And I found myself partial to drinking ESB, which was something very approachable yet different than most of the other beers on tap at that time; it kept me coming back for more. Looking back, there was also something about Red Hook that was subtle and not too sweet—much different than a Red Hook today. Over time, I elevated the memories of those pints of ESB to a level that inspired me to create my own version while homebrewing with Marcus [Burnett, Rockaway’s co-owner]. After playing with our recipe and tweaking it for, if I remember correctly, 2 1/2 to 3 years, it became our current Rockaway Original ESB.
Travis Kauffman, Folksbier
On a trip to Munich, Germany, I had a beer that totally changed my perception of the way beer is made and enjoyed; it was my first “real German beer,” a mug of Helles Bier at the Augustiner Muschelsaal. The beer itself was light in color and offered a sweet malty nose with a little sulfur puff, the trademark of traditional Bavarian lager yeast. It was clean and thirst-quenching and made you want more immediately which is why they serve it a full liter at a time. But while It was extraordinary and unlike anything you can get in the States, in Munich it’s not special. In fact they make enough to satisfy the six million people who show up for Oktoberfest every year. Their beers are supported by ancient beer halls, patrons old and young, and by tourists who come from around the world. They have special clothes they wear to drink beer, build tents that house tens of thousands of beer drinkers, have endless songs for drinking beer, and parade their beer around in traditional wood casks from which they also serve it. It was clear, these folks love beer and have for hundreds of years. This expression of true beer culture was an inspiration to me: It changed my palate and the way I thought about producing local beer.
Patrick Allen, Keg & Lantern
It’s hard to choose one so I’m just going to throw these two out there: Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale and Unibroue’s La Fin du Monde.
Growing up, when my oldest brother would splurge on beer he would buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. It was certainly a shock to my palate at first compared to the American light lagers I was used to, but it didn’t take long to win me over. To this day it has everything I want in that “stranded on a desert island”-type beer: superb malt character with a light amount of caramel and wonderfully fresh cascade floral hop aroma with a perfect balance. I hold every beer I make up to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and if it’s not as good then I am not happy with it. After attending Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp last year and visiting the brewery in Chico I became even more enamored with just how awesome that beer is along with the philosophy and sustainability initiatives of the company overall.
Unibroue’s La Fin Du Monde, on the other hand, was love at first taste. Honestly it could have probably been any good Belgian-style ale, its just La Fin came at the right time and place. Compared to the more neutral American yeast, the Belgian yeast really showed me the dynamic flavor range that a beer can have. It was like having only Kraft American Cheese your whole life and then tasting a blue cheese for the first time. After tasting my way through the widely available Belgian beers, I would eventually land in the world of sours which I would not have found if it were not for La Fin Du Monde.
Greg Doroski, Threes Brewing
As I’ve said before to the magazine, drinking Orval for the first time my sophomore year in college was a transformative experience; it really changed the way I look at beer. At the time we drank a lot of Harpoon IPA and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. And at least for me, at the time, hoppy seemed to signify and define craft beer. In retrospect it seems silly to highlight my perception of the centrality of hops in craft beer given where hoppy beers have gone.
Until I tried Orval for the first time, I don’t think I really understood what good beer was, or really what beer could be: layers of flavor and aroma, complex but not noisy or loud, well conceived and executed, and probably more importantly, something that deserved a place at the table, that could compliment good food.
Probably more than any other one beer, Orval informs my brewing aesthetic and sets an example of the kind of beers I strive to brew—and to be clear I’m not really even talking about their use of Brett. Developing one-dimensional flavor profiles is relatively easy; it really just becomes a question of how you can cram more of something into your product. Layering, though, requires much more thought and much more attention to detail, process and technique. I think there is probably also more risk because there is much less noise to hid behind. Anyone can dump more of the hottest hop variety into a beer but it won’t necessarily make it good—at least to my mind.
I hope craft beer continues to mature to a point where a double IPA isn’t viewed by some as the most important beer style, or the lens through which they judge all beer. Don’t get me wrong: I love IPA and I love hops. That said, hops are only one ingredient in beer and there are many great non-hop-centric beers.