Thanksgiving is a time to reflect and give thanks for everything (and everyone) you are grateful for. It is a time to spend with the people you love, to enjoy good food, and of course, to indulge in a few good beers.
This year, be sure to impress your guests with a variety of Autumn Arch beers to enhance the Thanksgiving dining experience.
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?).
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.
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in garages and backyards, but in 1979, the world was modernized and Congress passed the H.R. 1337, a bill that repealed any restrictions and taxes towards homebrewing.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.
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.
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
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.
What’s up 2021?! It’s good to be here.
Last year was a quite an interesting journey for the entire craft beer industry, and unfortunately, Delaware lost at least one brewery (3rd Wave in Delmar, DE). But ever the optimistic state, DE gained a fancy new brewery in Middletown - First State Brewing - and Burley Oak opened up a spin-off “Loakal Branch’. So that’s a net gain of one, which isn’t too bad considering the ramifications of a world altering pandemic.
Coming out of the the unexpected craziness that was spring 2020, the Autumn Arch team sat down and made some decisions around ‘who we were going to be’ moving forward (and how to do that in the middle of a pandemic). What became abundantly clear during that work is that we were going to double-down on our mission to create and release complex and unique beers.
What does this mean in reality? It means delivering beers that make you say ‘whoa’ with just the aroma. It means crafting beers so delicious that you save the bottle and place it in location of high regard (as I do). It means trying some edgy and experimental things with adjuncts/barrels/ingredients that may or may not work. It means sending more cans and bottles out into the world. It means bringing in a full-time brewer (which we did) who shares the vision and has the tools and experience to execute.
Therefore, in addition to our can releases, you’ll see two new bottle series from us in the coming month - Cellar Series and Abstract Methods .
One half of the Valentine’s Double Sour Release
The Cellar Series is exclusively focused on our nascent sour program. After nearly two years of brewing and barrel-aging, the program is yielding some very interesting and unique flavor profiles, which hopefully you’ve experienced at one of our Sour Wednesday events. We have several fun sours and sour-hybrids currently bottle conditioning, as well as a few more in the works for a 2021 release. We are very excited about what’s in the pipeline, and in fact, the first two beers in the Cellar Series releases on Feb 6! More details on that little gem soon…
Abstract Methods is a series more focused on the ‘complex’ side of ales and lagers. No sours here. These will generally be high ABV (10%+), high character/interestingness, occasionally barrel aged, and rarer styles. In other words, not your typical Monday night after-work beer. Justin and Dan are actively working to release the first one of these in late February/early March.
Does this mean we are eliminating all the light/golden beers on the tasting room menu?!
Heck no.
The tasting room will continue to serve a broad range of ‘whatever suits our fancy’ which includes a nice selection of golden/dark ales and lagers. But you’ll start seeing the occasional Cellar Series and Abstract Methods beers sprinkled in, which is a good thing for 2021.
P.s. I made a resolution to post more than once per quarter on this blog, so hold me to it.
