Why Local Breweries Rock For Homebrewers

I have been making plans to brew a German Pils for while in order to work on my lagering process.  To get the right yeast pitch, I made a starter with two vials of yeast with plans to brew at the end of the week.  Then, about 1-2 days later, the starter just went bad for some reason, which deep-sixed my brewing plans.

On a whim, I sent out a message to one of the local brewers I know from an area brewpub (Coddington Brewing Co.), in the hopes that he might have some spare lager yeast.  Being the accomodating guy that he is, he hooked me up with a growler full of lager yeast (Saflager S-189) from a Dopplebock he brewed a week and a half ago.  Score!

And this is what I love about most crafter brewers - they love beer and they are always willing to help out others who share the same passion.  I am sure there are exceptions, but as a homebrewer, there are lots of dividends for interacting with and getting to know the local brewers in your area.  Whether its for information exchange, help with some materials, or just hanging out with like minded individuals, get to know your brewers.  You would be missing out on a great resource and comrade if you let it pass you by.

My hat is off to you Marshall - thank you very much for saving my brew day.

Slainte!

-JW


"We brewers don't make beer, we just get all the ingredients together and the beer makes itself."
-Fritz Maytag 

Poll: Brewing Ingredients From Farmers Markets?

Like all our prior blog polls, this post takes a moment to memorialize the results we recieved on the most recent blog poll.  The reader's responses to the question "How often have you bought brewing ingredients from a local farmers market?" are presented below.

Total Votes: 13

I was a bit stunned when these results began coming in.  Farmers markets are thriving these days and people can buy many interesting and curious items at the stalls and stands the line these markets.  During the late summer, such as this, fruits and vegtables of all types are starting to show up (at least here in New England), which creates an even larger bounty of opportunity for brewing. 

Even with that all said, I'll admit that I am one of the 'Never' voters as well.  I'm not sure why, but I have yet to cross my farmers-marketing (if that's a word) with my brewing like so many other voters.  Maybe I don't associate the two.  Maybe processing raw ingredients into brewing ingredients is just enough additional work that I just shrug my shoulders.  I really don't know.

While I resort to the latter, I really do believe in the former.  I would challenge any brewer to think about it the next time they are wandering the rows and aisles - what flavors could I use in my beer/mead/cider that can be found at this particular local market?  Who knows what will come out of it.

Let us know what you think!  And if you are reading this, our next poll is up awaiting your participation.

 

Slainte!

-JW

"Mmmmmm...Beer!"

-Homer Simpson

Local Beer Festival: River Bend Beer Festival

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of attending the River Bend Beer Festival, located in Scottsville, VA.  The festival, which is in its second year, features a variety of breweries from around Virginia, including both regionally-known breweries and smaller obscure ones.  In fact, I was surprised to note that about a third of the breweries at the festival were ones I had never heard of before.  It was very enjoyable to sample beers I was unfamiliar with and talk with the brewers about their craft (most of the smaller brewery booths were actually staffed by the head brewers or owners).  Breweries represented at the festival included:

• Big Daddy's Brewing Company
• Blue Mountain Brewery
• Devil's Backbone Brewing Company
• Gordon Biersch Brewing
• Jefferson Street Brewery
• Legend Brewing Company
• The River Company Restaurant
• Saint George Brewing
• Shooting Creek Brewery - They had my favorite beer of the festival - Rebel Rye
• Starr Hill Brewery
• Williamsburg Alewerks

I was equally surprised by the breadth of people I met at the River Bend Beer Festival.  I spoke with a public official from the Rehoboth Beach, DE, who was unsurprisingly a huge fan of Dogfish Head.  I also met a couple from Europe who were visiting Virginia and randomly heard of the local festival.  I met a manager from a MillerCoors plant.  The variety of people that this local, and relatively small, festival drew was quite interesting.

This experience leads one to thinking, are beer festivals on the rise in the United States?  What do beer festivals represent to the larger craft beer market?  Locally, I would say that there is an increased interest in beer festivals, with River Bend in its second year and a new festival, Top of the Hops, debuting this year in Charlottesville.  Anecdotally, I have read more about beer festivals in the past couple of years, as well as growing attendance by brewers and craft beer fans at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) and the National Homebrewers Conference, which seems to indicate increased interest.  However, there is a surprising lack of data on beer festival trends out in the public domain.  Several quick Google searches yielded some sites that featured calendars of beer festivals, but no analysis of the number of beer festivals in the United States or if such festivals are growing in popularity.  I would think this sort of information would be of interest to a number of people and should be generally available.

What about the Lug Wrench readership?  Have you been able to participate in local beer festivals?  Do there seem to be more festivals now then five years ago?  Post a comment and let us know.

Cheers,

TW

Poll: How Does Homebrewing Affect Your Commercial Beer Purchasing

Similar to what has been done for all our prior blog polls, this post takes a moment to memorialize the results we received on the most recent blog poll. The reader’s response to the question “How would the knowledge that a commercial beer came from homebrewing roots influence the likelihood you would purchase that beer?” are presented below.

When we setup this poll, I had the impression that the response would not have been so skewed to one side as it did. I had assumed there would be more people swayed by the homebrewing roots, but not to the extreme as shown above. Three out of four people stated it would increase the likelihood of their purchase. That’s great!

Perhaps this response is part of the Local Food movement experienced these past several years. People want to know where their food is coming from, want it to be local, and want to feel some form on connection to it. Homebrewing, at its basic level, exemplifies all these. It’s the average Joe brewing beer the way he or she wants to for no other reason than because he or she like it that way. There’s no corner-cutting. Maximal profit margins doesn’t drive the recipe. It gives the impression that it wouldn’t be made if it wasn’t good.

Furthermore, from a pure marketing standpoint, emphasizing a product’s homebrewing roots adds some uniqueness to the beer helps differentiate it from the others on the shelf or in the other faucets. It helps it stand out from the normal pale ale/stout/porter background noise of all the other offerings. Personally, while I’ve only been in one bar that had a homebrewer / pro-brewer collaboration beer on tap, you better believe I ordered a couple pints of it – not necessarily because it was good (which it was), but because it was different. It jumped out at me when it came time to order

Of course this poll is inherently biased and that bias has to be understood in order to pull out value from the results. For one, the sample size is small - a fact that can't be disputed. Second, this is a beer blog, which is predominately read by craft beer fans and homebrewers. These are the folks that are willing to try new things. These are the people that are much more understanding about features that may make one beer unique to other beers. It’s that understanding that sets this group apart from the rest of the ‘Yellow Fizzy Beer’ general public that drives the overall beer market. The poll gives the viewpoint of a very specific population.  That bias does not invalidate the results, but allows a window into the thoughts of a particular customer base.  If this population happens to be the target population for a business (i.e. craft beer-specific bars or brewpubs), the results may indeed provide a whole lot of meaning.

We’d love to know what you think of the results and how the information may (or may not) be used.

Thanks to all those that participated. Please take a moment and participate in our next poll, which should already be up.

Slainte!

-Jeff


"I always find it strange that someone would turn their nose up at a homemade beer ... while regarding anything else homemade to be of superior quality to the pre-packaged factory-made alternative".
-The Beer Nut

Importance of Local Homebrew Shops

Disclaimer:  This is an opinion post, a straight-up examination of my feelings on an issue.  There may be disagreement with the basic points I raise here, but that is what opinion posts are all about.  If you disagree, please post a comment and let us know your thoughts – lively debate is a positive effect of such posts in our eyes. 

Local homebrewing shops are critical to the success of the homebrewing hobby.  They cannot be substituted by online shops, who supply more ingredients than one can ever ask for or find locally.  They cannot be substituted by online forums, who can offer advice on every topic imaginable.  Why are local shops so critical?   They offer a human connection to a social beverage; one that cannot be replaced by all the chat rooms in the world.

 I speak with some experience on this opinion, as my home town lacked a homebrewing store for more than 8 years.  I moved to this medium-sized town in Virginia in 2000 and the closest thing we had to a homebrewing store closed down 6 months later (a coincidence, I swear).  We did not have any local homebrewing presence until The Fermentation Trap opened on April Fool’s Day in 2008, the same year my local homebrewing club, CAMRA, formed.  The intervening years were hard, in a way.  While we had access to online brewing stores and resources, there was no personal connection to help push interest in the hobby further.  This lack of connection instilled in me the opinion that homebrewing is beyond all else, a social venture.  It, like the beer it produces, is a social experience that can only be truly appreciated when enjoyed with other people who share similar interests.

Why write an article about this issue at this time?  Today, I had the opportunity to speak with a representative from my local shop.  He expressed a concern about maintaining clientele in the face of strong cost competition with online retailers.  That conversation got me thinking.  I support online retailers, such as Northern Brewer, Austin Homebrew Supply, and MoreBeer, because of the variety of products they offer and the sponsorship they provide to my favorite online podcasts.  However, they cannot replace the personal touch offered by local homebrewing shops and the interest they generate in the hobby to beginners and advanced brewers alike.  They cannot replace the personal advice and encouragement offered to someone who expresses an interest in this daunting and intimidated hobby.

Why is this important to you, a reader of the Lug Wrench Brewing blog?  Local homebrewing shops can only survive on local patronage.  They do not usually have the breadth of coverage that the online shops enjoy.  If local support for them dries up, they will fail.  The lack of their services will both be felt when someone forgets a missing ingredient on brew day, as well longer term, when the hobby has fewer new members. 

Support your local shop whenever you can!

Cheers,

TW