Get Your Spook On: A Halloween Beer For Those Who Dare Go There + Top Haunted Spots AROUND Newark!

October has arrived and AUTUMN ARCH BEER PROJECT is fully embracing the spooky season. We’re so psyched to get our fright flags flying, that we’ve brewed up a superbly scary new beer (complete with a can design that would make even Michael Meyers stop and stare).  And we’ve compiled a list of haunted local haunts in and around Newark, Delaware for your fearful pleasure.

10.3% Imperial Stout, Coffin Motif

The first stop on the Delaware Halloween tour is Fort Delaware just outside of Delaware City. If you’ve always wanted to go searching for ghosts, look no further.  Aside from being a rad Civil War prison, Fort Delaware provides a dramatic background for a “3-hour paranormal investigation” hosted by the Diamond State Ghost Investigators.  Sign-up soon as the spots are limited!  (includes a cool boat ride too!)  

Second stop: tour of Old New Castle. If you’re looking for a history lesson while you get spooked, this is the activity for you. The Amstel House is “one of the town's most haunted locations” due to the Lady in Blue.  We would tell you who the “Lady in Blue” is; however, no one knows for sure.  Keep in the spirit of colonial Delaware and drop by Jessop’s Tavern for a bite and brew afterwards.

Third stop:  check out Dead President’s Tavern in Wilmington. While the tavern isn’t haunted by any actual presidents (that we know of) it is supposedly haunted by an exceptionally problematic drunk, who was aptly named “Lemonade Mullery”.  Visitors that were unfortunate enough to pull up a bar stool close enough to Mullery experienced, “dishes being thrown at them, screaming, dominoes floating from the game boards in the recreation room, and other activities.” Mullery ended up dying in an unfortunate slipping accident in the tavern’s bathroom where his spirit apparently still lives; so stop by and hopefully you won’t get hit by a rogue ghostly domino.

Once you’re freaked out enough to REALLY need a drink, Autumn Arch’s tasting room is the perfect place to recover with friends. Our new 10.3% Imperial Stout, Coffin Motif, is out just in time for Halloween. A dark-hearted stout with an elegantly creamy body and strong roastiness, this strong stout pours jet black with a tan head, as all respectable stouts should. For those looking to imbibe on something a little more mellow - we just released our popular fall beer “Sans Pumpkin”, a delightful pumpkin porter.

History of Craft Beer. Then and Now.

Believe it or not, craft beer did not always exist in the world *gasp*.  True.  There were even a few years where beer was illegal in the U.S., and that was probably a difficult time to be alive!  Beer has come a long way since it first began, and Autumn Arch Beer Project is just a small piece of this huge and constantly evolving industry.  

Before you take another sip of your hazy grapefruit milkshake sour IPA, understand that craft beer is on a journey that started with humble beginnings.  Prior to craft beer becoming the phenomenon it is today, American craft beer traversed amendments, Prohibition, bold entrepreneurs, acquisitions, and at least one Recession (and Brut IPAs...how was that a thing?).

Early History of Craft Beer

One of the most significant moments in the history of beer was the Prohibition era. The Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was enacted into law on January 16, 1919. Thus began the era when manufacturing, selling, and transportation of alcoholic beverages was declared illegal (can you imagine this happening today?!)

All legal breweries came to a screeching halt and soon took to producing non-alcoholic beverages to keep themselves afloat. These breweries started manufacturing malt-syrup, near beer, colas, and root beers….coincidentally, a lot of breweries have started doing this again!  i.e. sparkling waters, kombuchas, and NA beers.

It took 13 years and multiple acts to repeal the Prohibition, ending with the Twenty-first Amendment. Once beer was legalized again, the journey to more flavorful beers started, a journey that was not really planned.

1979: President Jimmy Carter Legalized Homebrewing

Prior to Jimmy Carter’s presidency, homebrewing was surreptitiously conducted in garages and backyards, but in 1979, the world was modernized and Congress passed the H.R. 1337, a bill that repealed any restrictions and taxes towards homebrewing. The bill then came into effect when President Jimmy Carter signed it into law. As soon as the H.R.1337 was passed, America saw its first Brewers Association and the American Home Brewers Association come into existence.

In 1978, there were about 89 breweries in the U.S.

1990s: The Microbrewery Boom

In the period between 1985-1997, the microbrewery scene saw a boom like never before. With 20+ percent growth year over year, there was no stopping the craft beer business. People soon started seeing the potential, especially, because the early craft brewery owners were extremely successful. The Boston Beer Company even went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in the year 1995! This brought in a new wave of investors who wanted to imbibe in the rapidly growing business. 

By the end of 2020, there were over 8,000 breweries in the U.S.

Where We Are Today 

While sales of all-time favorites and national flagship brands shrink, beer lovers have started experimenting with new flavors and styles (e.g. hazy IPAs, Fruit Smoothie Beers, seltzers, etc). In this case, consolidation has not crushed innovation; it has, in a way, fueled it. Brewers have realized their consumers have a strong desire to experiment with new flavors, and they are merely obliging them – even if this requires producing lesser volume but greater breadth of offerings.  Gone are the days where a brewery could rely on a handful of ‘flagship’ beers!

Autumn Arch Beer Project, along with most of the other Delaware craft breweries, would not be where we are today without the strong growth in U.S. craft beer. Today, we have 15 different types of brews on our menu ranging from 3 varieties of IPAs, a couple Lagers, two imperial stouts and a sour or two...this is definitely a step up from the typical 1995 microbrewery menu!  The team at Autumn Arch is constantly striving to create new and complex flavors, and this is not only the key to growing in a dynamic industry, but it’s been the key to craft beer's success over the past 40 years.  Embrace the change!

From Source: Craft Beer in America: The History and Development | Microbrewery.com

From Source: The Illustrated History of Craft Beer in America | First We Feast

SUMMER RETREAT

As the hazy and humid summer settles in over Newark, the Autumn Arch team took a long weekend break in July to reflect and recharge. Since one of our partners lives in Minneapolis, we decided to take the show on the road (with some stops in Iowa beforehand and Montana afterwards).

A couple points of interest:

Firstly, Minneapolis is quite the fun little city. Plenty of lakes, breweries, wide boulevards, and sunny skies (albeit slightly hazy with wildfire smoke). Tons of early 1900s buildings and neat midwestern architecture. This is something I’m a little jealous of since Delaware has very few old warehouse style buildings that would make good breweries. And the citizens of Minneapolis have definitely taken advantage of this.

Secondly, it was only a year ago that the city was rocked with protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd. We drove over to where it all happened. It looked like the site had remained relatively untouched with the streets closed off and flowers lining the sidewalks. Amid the serene calmness, it was hard to believe this tiny corner sparked a nation-wide movement a mere 14 months ago.

The break from Newark was good. Plenty of candid discussion on the where Autumn Arch is today and where it’s heading tomorrow. Tons of excitement there.

We had planned this little break back in the middle of winter, and now that it has come and passed, we all agreed that it was very much needed after all the furious activity involved in running a business through 2020. It was a collective deep breath before the start of race. A re-focus on what’s really important.

We hope you had a chance to hit the reset button this summer (or at least the pause button for a few days). COVID’s not over; things are getting expensive, the weather is weird, and craft seltzers are here to stay :) But so is exceptional craft beer at Autumn Arch. Drop by and tell us about your summer. We’d love to hear about it.

PS. Run Club on Wednesdays is a perfect opportunity to do this - you’ll have our undivided attention for 4 miles plus some serious hanging afterwards (with post run refreshments of course).

NEXT BEER CRAZE?

Newark, DE. The latest nascent craft beer trend seems intriguing - “performance beers” are light beers with added electrolytes, kind of like adult Gatorades. But there’s no way they can be nearly as effective in hydrating the body because the presence of alcohol (hello! It’s beer!) will always be a dehydrating factor.

Will these performance beers really take off and be the next hard seltzer? Not sure, but I suspect not. Although, feel free to call me out if we put Arctic Blitz Belgian Wit on tap this summer.

Over the last 20 years, I would argue that the lead beer in the craft beer charge has passed the baton per the following (approximate) schedule:

late 90s - Pale Ale and dry-hopped IPA
early 2000s - West Coast IPA
mid 2000s - New England / Hazy IPA
early 2010s - Barrel Aged Sours
mid 2010s - Dessert Stouts
mid 2010s - Fruit Smoothie Beers
2019 - Fruited Hard Seltzer
2021 - Performance Beers?

It’s easy to see that the 1990s Sierra Nevada Pale Ale craze was going to inevitably turn into hazy New England IPAs, even if a bunch of traditional breweries didn’t want to admit it. It’s a logical chain of evolution.

As the craft beer market grew and pulled in different and varied tastes, mainstream barrel-aged sours and dessert stouts were able to take hold and generate excitement. I think the craft beer market had really matured at this point, with 5000+ breweries in the U.S., it was common-place to find a few craft brews in the typical American’s picnic cooler. In fact, your peers may have been disappointed had you NOT included those craft brews.

Not everything lived up to the hype, and thankfully, a few strange beer inventions died a quick death (i.e. Brut IPAs). This is part of craft experimentation…some things just don’t work.

This all leads to my main point. At some point, you have to throw it against the wall to see if it’s going to stick. It’s fun and usually interesting.

What is Autumn Arch going to throw against the wall? We have a couple things in the works, but I’m not disclosing anything until after I finish this performance beer.