Hieronymus - Brewing local: American-grown beer: explore local flavor using cultivated and foraged ingredients

Mildred: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?

Johnny: Whadda you got?

T his famous exchange with Marlon Brando as Johnny in the movie The Wild One is a great starting point for a discussion of brewing locally in America at this moment in time. Americans are blissfully rebellious in nature. It is awesome to see so many American brewers (pro and home) brewing outside the box in 2016, the 500th anniversary of the German purity law, the Reinheitsgebot.

The pilgrims who settled the Plymouth Colony in the northeast United States, like ancient brewers around the world, brewed beer with whatever beautiful, natural ingredients they could find that came from the earth. They tasted lovely, fermented miraculously, and made them feel closer to their gods and ancestors. Today its no different. The rise of small breweries we are currently enjoying here in the United States is often called a revolution by the media. Thats inaccurate. Its a Renaissance, not a revolution. Prior to Prohibition, there were over 4,000 indie, artisanal, small-scale breweries making distinct regional beers in this country. For everything you have heard about the rise of craft beer in the last four decades as a nation, it took us until 2015 for the number of independent, commercial breweries in this country to eclipse the national high set prior to Prohibition. This is a return to form. The indie craft brewing Renaissance is on. The Reinheitsgebot has been righteously marginalized by todays intrepid and adventurous homebrewers and craft brewers. This Renaissance is a sort of pilgrimage as well. A return to our early-American brewing roots. (Sometimes literally brewing WITH roots). And to borrow a line from R.E.M., the pilgrimage has gained momentum. There is a more specific and (I may be biased) more amazing craft micro-Renaissance happening within the greater craft Renaissance today. As the reader of Brewing Local: American-Grown Beer will soon discover, Stan has done a wonderful job digging beneath the surface, rooting through the history, and foraging the fruitful forests of todays most adventurous American breweries to bring this micro-Renaissance to light. The Renaissance within the Renaissance is the one where we as intrepid home and craft brewers are bringing back brewing ingredients beyond water, hops, yeast, and barley.

All the stereotypes of postcolonial America are tied up in this story that Stan tells so well. Americans are fearless. We relish opportunities to express our ingenuity. And I think this trait has been amplified in our DNA from generation to generation. Perhaps our colonial brewing ancestors made beer with parsnips and mushrooms, corn and fruit, because they had to. Perhaps they made it with those ingredients because they damn well wanted to, and if you dont like it dont tread on me.

Many of us who are students of the American brewing story know the story from the journal of a Mayflower passenger. A strong argument can be made that the settlement in Plymouth was founded on our thirst for beer. Upon setting up camp, our colonial brewing ancestors learned they would need to apply their faith in human ingenuity if they were going to slake their thirst for beer. High-grade, well-malted brewers barley wasnt exactly growing on trees here in the New World. So they began to forage for fermentable sugar sources, for herbs and spices, that they could throw into pots to make their beer.