I turned sixty last year, and was recently blessed with the birth of my fourth grandchild so I’m officially entitled to ‘old fogey’ status. So, first, I’d like to say…get off my damn lawn!
Now, I’d like to reflect on the notion of ‘new’ alcoholic beverages, like sour beers, and specifically, barrel-aged sour beers. And while, these products might be new to many, and the use of different barrels may be interesting, there ain’t a damn thing new about this style of beer or the practice of barrel-aging beer.
Beer made its debut around 4000 BC…that’s right, over 6000 years ago. It seems that beer production actually predates agricultural systemization, which is pretty interesting since (modern) beer largely relies on cereal grains. But beer, which was likely an accidental invention, can be made from any substance that has sugar and proximity to yeast.
Which brings us quickly to sour beers, which are beers designed to be tart tasting. This, again, likely happened accidentally as some yeast and bacteria (such as those used in yogurts) produce a sour flavor. I’ll further contend that barrel-aging (of both wine and beer) was an outgrowth of storage and transportation since wooden barrels were the common vehicle of storage and conveyance throughout much of history. My theory is that some intrepid brewer tasted some of last year’s beer (which was in a barrel) and said, well, damn, that’s good, let’s make it that way purposefully.
So, this guy, the brewer, started experimenting and found that using older barrels changed the beer flavors, and old barrels that had been used for storage of other substances (like wine) changed the beer flavors even more dramatically. Add to that, used barrels imparted some other bacterial strains, which…well you get it.
Then came the Industrial Revolution and beer got boring as science and innovation was tasked with concepts like mass-production and efficient transport. And eventually, metal kegs were introduced. Wooden barrels were no longer a thing.
Industrialization, consolidation and economic growth (and perhaps world domination) became more important that making cool beer, until the 70’s or so, when New Albion Brewery in Sonoma was founded. The number of craft brewers has gone from eight in 1980, to 537 in 1994, to over 6,000 in 2018. And many of these breweries are looking back and re-discovering older beer making styles and techniques. Hence, sour beer aged in old Tequila casks with grapefruit and lime rind.
I truly think this new generation of brewers deserve kudos for creativity and derring-do, as long as they don’t try to claim originality. Building on great ideas from the past is fun, exciting and perhaps even good business. But it ain’t new.