Microbrewed Adventures - Charles Papazian [4]
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My intention is not to denounce the brewery. The Red Hook Brewery, founded by passionate beer people and one of the co-founders of Starbucks Coffee as the Independent Brewing Company, began brewing in August of 1982. Paul Shipman, who still leads the brewery, was there at its inception to introduce their original and legendary fruity, yeast-influenced Red Hook Ale. It was a phenomenal success among homebrew enthusiasts and worth a story in and of itself. But I yearn for the original Ballard Bitter.
SECTION ONE
Microbrewed: American Style
CHAPTER 1
Birth of Style
I WAS TAKING THE F TRAIN from Manhattan to Brooklyn, on my way to the Park Slope Brewery Pub, in the autumn of 1994. Halloween had recently come and gone. Jack-o’-lantern pumpkins still glowered from neighborhood windows. The evening was cold, inspiring me to walk briskly through the Brooklyn neighborhood as I searched for the newly opened brewpub.
My thoughts dwelled on a conference presentation given earlier in the day where the question was asked, “Why are certain areas of the country hotbeds of microbreweries and specialty beers?” An expert presented his reasoning, citing pseudo-facts about culture and demographics. I thought to myself, those reasons are academic bullshit things you say when you really don’t know.
It was a longer walk to the Park Slope Brewery than I had imagined. I asked myself the same question. Could it be that specialty beer and microbrewery beer are especially popular in certain areas because of a handful of key individuals and their enthusiasm, dedication and persistence? I believe microbrewed beer’s success in certain areas is a result of people such as Ken Grossman (Sierra Nevada), Fritz Maytag (Anchor Steam), Steve Hindy (Brooklyn Brewing Company), Paul Shipman (Red Hook Ale), Fred Bowman (Portland Brewing Company), Kurt Widmer (Widmer Brewing, Portland, OR), John Hickenlooper (Denver’s Wynkoop Brewery), Greg Noonan (Vermont Pub and Brewery, Burlington), David Geary (D. L. Geary’s Brewing Company, Maine) and others. Demographics and culture contribute nothing compared to the influence of individual acts of heroism, dedication and persistence. But in high-powered industrial economics, never is individual heroism an accepted explanation. It does not fit very well into the academic and economic models at board meetings and learned universities. Big-company marketing departments are uncomfortable with this.
I was still walking. In what seemed to be a strictly residential neighborhood, I was looking around for a brewpub. There were no signs of beer anywhere. A Jack-o-lantern sat in a corner window of a building. I shaded my eyes from the overhead street lamp and peered inside. It was a bar, with gleeful pumpkins alit with flames. There was beer.
I entered and was greeted by the warmth and glow of friendship and microbrewed beer. There was little doubt—this had to be the place. But where was the brewery? Steve Deptula greeted me with recognition and I was quickly confronted with a decision: California ale, porter, blonde, Kölsch (with 30 percent flaked corn), barley wine or pumpkin ale on tap. A pint of hearty ale soon graced my hand.
Owner and brewer Steve explained the unusual circumstances of his business. Steve was a graduate of the “Complete Joy of Homebrewing” School of Brewing. The brewery pub was a complete do-it-yourself project involving a year and a half of renovation. Steve’s resources were limited, but his determination obviously was not.
The beautiful mahogany bar, graced by the good cheer of local beer drinkers, was a testimonial to his accomplishment. The small brewery below was retrofitted with equipment. Steve proudly explained how, with limited resources, he had had to place the chilled aging tanks in the same room as the fermenters. How did he keep the fermenters warm enough for ale fermentation? An $18 space heater from Wal-Mart.
The brewery