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Microbrew Mania --
An Art Form Rediscovered
By DAVID MAULL, TV Times
This is beer the way it was meant to taste.
It is not the kind you buy for mass consumption in a short period of time. It is not the kind that contains short-cut ingredients like rice and corn. It is not the kind that must be iced down for hours to enhance the flavor.
It is microbrew, and it's an art that is being rediscovered.
"It was never really completely lost. It's less of a revolution (and more of) a renaissance," said Sam Calagione, president of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Lewes and Rehoboth Beach. "It's opened up people to know there's more than the golden lager style."
During the 1990s, beer produced by small local breweries has gained in popularity throughout the United States. It's a trend that has spent 10 years working its way east from the Pacific Northwest.
Most microbrew recipes have roots in Europe and the beer has more flavor than the mass-produced American brands advertised on television and radio. It also tends to be more filling, darker in color and higher in alcohol content.
Its the type of beer one savors, not guzzles.
"I'd say it is superior beer," Calagione said.
But why the sudden explosion in popularity?
Calagione believes microbrew offers an "affordable connoisseurship" in which one can drink quality beer but not have to spent large amounts of money.
"Once people try it, they realize it's a better product," he said.
Most microbreweries follow the centuries-old German purity law, enacted in 1560. The law requires four main ingredients - hops, barely, yeast and water - to be used in the brewing process.
Mass-produced commercial beers, however, use cheaper ingredients such as corn and rice. As a result, flavor and body are sacrificed.
There are also more brewing styles within the microbrew realm.
Dogfish Head, for instance, regularly produces a pale ale, stout ale and a strong ale, which has a higher alcohol content. They also brew seasonal ales and a special beer served exclusively by Grotto Pizza.
Two factors can likely be credited for the microbrew boom - flavor and awareness.
"I think the beer-drinking public has realized there is more than Bud, Miller and Coors available," said local beer enthusiast Doug Griffith. "The national big guys don't have the flavor the mircobrews do. It's just got more body to it."
Griffith, like many others, has taken great joy from the microbrew renaissance.
"You just have more of a variety," he said. "We're going back to the days before prohibition."
Prohibition was the ruin of many small breweries, which were forced to either shut down or be bought out by large breweries that survived by producing soda or low-alcohol beer.
In recent years, however, the microbrewery has made a comeback. Calagione noted there are now more than 2,800 breweries in the United States, more per capita than Germany.
"I think it will stay that way," he said. "I think it's coming back to the understanding that the best beer is made locally."
It has also made the stakes higher in the microbrew industry. No longer is there room for a sub-par batch of beer.
"It has gotten a lot more competitive in that sense," Calagione said.
Dogfish Head began three years ago with a small brewery and pub in Rehoboth Beach. Now it has a second brewery in the Nassau Commons in Lewes and produces between 3,000 and 4,000 barrels each year.
About 70 percent of its product is bottled and shipped to locations throughout Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, New York and Washington, D.C.
"I think we have a lot of respect from the beer community," Calagione said.
Also unique is the equipment used to make microbrew.
At Dogfish Head, old dairy and cannery vessels were put into use at the original brewery. In Lewes, the hot liquor back was once used in a yogurt factory, the keg filler was used in a Pabst brewery in the 1950s and the bottler was built in 1969 and used in a soda factory.
Using such equipment reduces overhead costs and allows small breweries to get off the ground.
"We've kind of retooled some equipment to keep it cheap," Calagione said.
Griffith, meanwhile, has taken his love of quality beer a step further into the realm of homebrew.
As president of the Southern and Nearby Delaware Ale and Lager Society (SANDALS), Griffith compares his homemade beer with those of about 20 other club members.
He also runs a homebrew supply store out of his Millsboro home.
"It's a lot of fun. You can experiment and make different beers," he said. "You can customize the beer to your exact taste. I think it's great to have that selection."
SANDALS member John Syphard of Ocean View, became a microbrew/homebrew enthusiast 10 years ago.
"I used to drink a lot beer. The regular brands I got tired of. I started finding more beers that tasted good," he said.
Syphard began home brewing after purchasing a beer making kit from a gift catatlog.
"They give you the kit, then you start experimenting a little bit," he said. "You want your beer to improve. What really changes you is when you buy a book on it."
Those who enjoy cooking will take pleasure from experimenting with various recipes and ingredients, he added.
Syphard is confident he can brew a beer that tastes better than what is churned out by the large, national breweries.
"Most of their money goes into advertising," he said. "They tend to use a lot of corn and rice, they use more malt."
He noted there are plenty of choices out there for beer enthusiasts.
"All these people that drink beer, they don't know a darn thing about it," he said. "In anything, you ought to have variety."
Griffith noted microbrew and home brew is not intended to be consumed a six-pack or 12-pack at a time. Instead, the pleasure comes from savoring the flavor of a single finely-crafted beer.
"That one beer tastes so good," he said.
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