One of the most difficult things that you can do as a brewery is to attempt to reinvent your image.

The problem stems from the fact you already produce a product that likely has a loyal following and you don’t want to alienate the people who have been supporting you. It’s a problem that I’ve seen in breweries across Canada over the last few years, and it’s one that Calgary’s Big Rock Brewery is dealing with currently.

While they’ve maintained their regular line of products, including Grasshopper Wheat and Warthog Ale, brewmaster Paul Gautreau has been busy over the last few years with products in the Brewmaster’s Edition series. These have included choices that are slightly more esoteric than the regular lineup. There was a Dunkelweizen. There was a beer brewed with rye and ginger, which was creatively titled Rye and Ginger Ale. There was even a Scottish Style Heavy Ale that graduated from the seasonal program to become a year-round offering in a series of products named after the brewery’s founder, Ed McNally.

These beers are an attempt on the part of Big Rock to establish some serious credibility within the nerdy world of craft beer drinkers; a market that has changed around them as the beer scene in Calgary has taken off. This fall there have been two releases, which illustrate the change of direction the brewery is attempting. Both launches are clever in that they approach the expanding beer scene from different directions.

There’s the Saaz Republic Pilz, which is meant to be a 4.9% Pilsner in a Czech style. While there’s nothing particularly innovative about brewing a standard Czech-style Pilsner, you could easily argue the reason it was released in September was to subtly borrow from the Oktoberfest influence. When you consider that the launch event for the beer had both a stein holding contest and a schnapps bar, you can see how they’re sidling up to the idea. I would not be surprised if it morphed into an Oktoberfest beer by next year, a good idea because it engages the market.

There’s also the Ambrosia Wet Hop Ale, which is the first in a new series of beers called the Alchemist’s Edition. The purpose of this series is to give Gautreau a licence to play with existing styles and experiment in full view of the public. In this case, the hops being used in the brew are of the Cascade variety, picked in the Yakima Valley and couriered overnight to the brewery.

Unlike kilned hops, freshly picked hops retain their moisture and some of their more volatile aroma compounds. This often means there is a greener quality to them, and frequently they produce grassy notes in addition to the pine and citrus character you might associate with the Cascade variety. It’s the sort of thing that will draw in skeptics.

These are incremental steps for a brewery attempting to establish serious credibility. Neither of these beers is a shot across the bow. What they do is help to establish precedent that will be helpful when they attempt more exotic or elaborate beers. You can’t change direction in one abrupt motion.

It will be interesting to watch what happens with the Alchemist Edition. I think their best hope is to forget about commercial viability and give Gautreau the reins. Any man who gets so excited about hops that he wakes up in the middle of the night to check the tracking number on his hop shipment is a man that you can trust with a brewhouse.