

Skip “local” beer, drink native

The push for drinking local is an admirable one. For too long, this country has lacked a local connection to its beer and ingredients. That’s changing quickly as beer production seems to fill every empty warehouse in the county, and even the cultivation of hops and grains spreads (although it’s unclear if that has any real sustaining opportunity so far). And the access to local beer has a funny affect on consumers perceptions of what's in the glass— in short, they actually start to think of beer as a locally produced product like they think of their farmer or cheesemaker. Oops.

Beer might be a locally manufactured product, but its ingredients are far from it. It’s more akin to an iPhone ("Designed in California") or locally roasted coffee — those beans come from Africa or South America. And when the focus is on the source of the ingredients consumers tend to value quality above all else, and “local” becomes a discussion about access, or convenience, or freshness, but not origination. And that little bit of disambiguation should free you up to pursue the best beer you can get your hands on, regardless of where you want it to come from.

But where the concept of “local beer” really starts to have meaning is when we’re talking about a certain nativeness. Beer was once ancestral — it came from a people and their place. Sure, Germans drank pilsner in Pilsen (duh), but not just because it was just “local” in the sense of convenience, but because where it came from had an influence on the beer itself. The water quality and mineral contents pushed recipe development in a particular direction, the hops were cultivated and sourced regionally to support those recipes, and people developed a taste for their local beer. They weren't just asking for a locally made IPA that mimicked something from another region — they wanted their own.

The ingredients that drove the design of appellation beers (as they’re known) in antiquity aren’t really relevant in the same way today. Most water (even at Pilsner Urquell) is RO filtered and re-mineralized to match a desired profile, most hops are sourced from massive lots in the far Northwest or Europe still. In short, appellation beers have become reproducible styles, capable of being replicated anywhere on the planet. But there are many other ways that beers can derive a local, or native quality. Climate has a sincere affect on barrel-aging processes, for example, and Goose Island’s process for making Bourbon County Stout takes advantage of the expansion and contraction of the barrels throughout the year. Microflora and wild yeast is a key component of many wild ales, sours, ciders, and even some wines, and we’re only beginning to develop some real science around particular regions and breweries that consistently produce these kinds of beers. Not only can these beers not be replicated halfway around the world, they can’t be replicated down the street.

So if you want to support a local business by drinking the beer they manufacture in New York City from German malts and Yakima hops, that’s great. I hope it’s super good. But if you want to really drink local in a way that’s more than just creating a micro-economy with your weekly beer budget, then consider the source. Personally, I prefer my Saisons to come from Belgium and France, my West Coast IPAs from California, and my bourbon-barrel-aged stouts from the Midwest. If you don’t want your local "saison" to be compared to Saison DuPont, then make something different, entirely of your own.

Hats off to anyone giving these styles a run for their money in their local brewery — my skepticism will be healthy, my options plentiful, and my appreciation sincere if you pull it off.

