Homegrown Grain to Glass: An All-Michigan Beer
It seems as though there are a few things you learn early on as a homebrewer, including where your ingredients come from. Your hops come from the Yakima Valley, Germany or more recently New Zealand and Australia. Your barley was probably grown in the Pacific Northwest, Great Plains, Canada or Europe. But what if that didn’t have to be the case? What if you could source your malt and hops locally? For our brewing forefathers, ingredients were often sourced close to home, and lately around the US a new group of farmers and maltsters are working to bring localization back to brewing.
Growing Locally
It might seem like an obvious point, but first and foremost, to brew a locally sourced beer, the local climate must be able to support growing those ingredients. For hops, this eliminates some parts of the US, as hops grow best between latitude 40 and 50, though there are areas of the country that have seen some success outside of this range. The Yakima Valley in Washington, with the highest concentration of hop acreage in the country, sits around latitude 46, while the Willamette Valley in Oregon is a bit further south, around the 45th parallel.
While over 97% of the hop acreage in the United States is located in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, growing hops outside of this region is not without precedent. From the mid-18th century until the early 19th century, Massachusetts was recognized as the leading region for hop production in the United States. By the mid-19th century, New York was the hop growing capital of the country, eventually reaching annual production of over three million pounds. However, the industry fizzled, as a combination of competition from West Coast growers, major bouts with both downy mildew and aphids in the early 20th century, and finally Prohibition in 1918 put most local hop farmers in New York out of business for good. Other states such as Wisconsin and Michigan also had notable amounts of hop acreage prior to Prohibition, but like New York they did not last.
Despite the fact that commercial hop acreage has remained almost entirely contained to the Pacific Northwest for nearly 100 years, some of these old markets are finding life again. In Michigan, where I live, which now boasts more than 120 breweries, over 300 acres of hops are expected to be harvested in 2014, with that number anticipated to grow to as many as 500 acres for 2015. New York projects that 150 acres of hops will be harvested this year, with 75 more expected for 2015. In addition to Michigan and New York, 12 other states reported commercial acreage between 10 to 120 acres for the 2014 harvest, showing that interest in locally sourced hops isn’t isolated to just a few pockets of the country.
Barley, unlike hops, is currently grown in most regions of the US; the USDA reports that 22 different states planted at least 10,000 acres in 2013, ranging from southwestern states like Arizona to northeastern states such as Maine. It should be noted that not all of this is malting barley acreage, as much is used for feed, but it does show the potential for expansion or conversion of current acreage used for feed to growing for malting purposes.
Malt houses were also a highly localized type of business at one point early in our nation’s history, but like hops, consolidation led to most malt being produced by large companies with worldwide reach. Small, local malt houses, or as they identify themselves today, craft maltsters, are a small group but are growing rapidly, with around 20 actively malting for brewers in the US and Canada presently, and another 15 currently in the construction and planning stages. Craft maltsters are operating in nearly every region of the United States and Canada, with annual capacity ranging from 10 to 800 tons of malt per year. What makes a maltster a craft maltster? The North American Craft Maltsters Guild, a collection of small maltsters which organized in 2013, defines a craft maltster as one who sources the majority of their grains regionally, produces between 5 and 10,000 metric tons per year, and has ownership that does not exceed 24% by a larger, non-craft maltster. (Read more on the Web about The North American Craft Maltsters Guild at www.craftmalting.com.)
Why Local?
With so many choices of where to source ingredients already, the big question becomes, why choose to source anything locally? The answer lies in two main themes: That localization matters to both drinkers and brewers, and that the effect of local “terroir,” or the unique attributes of a location’s climate, soil and other environmental factors that can lead to flavors in local ingredients, can only be found regionally.
Maris Otter, American 2-row and continental Pilsner are all types of base malts, but each come from a different part of the world, and brewers use them based on their unique characteristics and flavor. Likewise, English and Noble style hops grown in Europe have notable differences from their American-grown counterparts. However, the differences in brewing ingredients can be much more regional. Michigan, for instance, has a few hop varieties that brewers have noted as standing out compared to their Northwest or European-grown counterparts. For example, Michigan Chin-ook is reported to have less pine and more citrus, even tropical fruit aroma, while SummitTM, grown exclusively in Michigan by New Mission Organics, is heavy on dank and citrus flavors, but lower on the onion/garlic that many associate it with. Also, Saaz hops grown by Hop Head Farms, the only grower in the state offering this variety, can offer double to triple the alpha acids of their Czech and Pacific Northwest grown counterparts.
Malt is no different, and can be noticeably different depending on where it is sourced. When it comes to malt, region and climate often dictate the type of crop that can be suitably grown for malting purposes. Varieties that grow well in the cool, dry climates of the Dakotas and Montana may not translate well to the wetter, more humid weather in the Atlantic region of the US. To illustrate this point, five different craft maltsters held a workshop at the Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) in Denver, Colorado. Each provided a base grain grown and malted from their region, which was then brewed into a light, malt-forward beer made on the pilot brewing system at New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The results were telling; each grain showed notable differences when it underwent malt analysis, but more importantly, each exhibited flavors that were distinct from the others. The effect of variety was on display in this workshop as well. Riverbend Malt House in Asheville, North Carolina was the only maltster to bring a 6-row barley, which is often frowned upon by both craft brewers and homebrewers alike. However, they chose this variety of barley specifically for its ability to make great malt while being grown in North Carolina’s climate. The spicy and lightly grassy character it exhibits gives it a unique flavor, and due to some smart farming practices, its protein content of less than 10% is equal to or lower than most commercially grown 2-row malt. Riverbend also offers an heirloom malted rye, which has been grown regionally since the mid-19th century, and was featured in New Belgium’s RyePA. Matty Gilliland, a brewer with New Belgium, who has used Riverbend’s malts several times, stated that early feedback on their malt has been positive.
“We seem to get more character out of them. Riverbend is big on the terroir that comes with using local heirloom grain varieties and malting them by hand, and I really think there’s something to that,” said Gilliland.
Valley Malt, located in Hadley, Massachusetts, says that depending on where the barley is sourced, their malt can exhibit a faint strawberry note, something that was noticeable in their version of the beer brewed for CBC. What this workshop displayed first hand was that flavors truly can be local as well, and when a brewer chooses to source a local product, they may give their beer a characteristic that they wouldn’t have found otherwise.
In addition to unique flavors that can be found in both malt and hops depending on locale, some markets are even trialing hop varieties that can’t be found anywhere else. Here in Michigan, Lynn Kemme, the head grower at Great Lakes Hops in Zeeland, is working with growers to evaluate varieties found growing wild throughout the state.
Great Lakes Hops is a hop propagation and breeding facility that provides plants to many of the new hop-yards starting up across the United States, and is the largest of its kind in the country outside of the Pacific Northwest. To date, over a dozen varieties found growing wild in Michigan have been brought to Great Lakes Hops where they were evaluated for origin, characteristics and suitability for brewing. Kemme said that most of the hops found growing wild in Michigan that he has seen are close relatives of hops that have grown in Europe for generations. While the true origin of these wild varieties may never be known, it seems likely they were transplanted by European immigrants during the 19th century, and when the hop growing industry in Michigan disappeared a century ago they were left to grow in the wild until they were found decades later.
Most of the wild hops brought to Great Lakes Hops are still undergoing evaluation, but one of them, a variety called Michigan Copper, was released to growers on a limited basis in 2014 after placing first in a sensory analysis of a number of trial varieties completed by a group of different commercial brewers. Some of the descriptors brewers used after evaluation, which include “pineapple,” make this an exciting new variety to look out for over the next few years.
Local Investment
Ultimately, for local providers to be able to grow and thrive, the brewers themselves must be willing to invest in purchasing their malt and hops locally. While the movement to return to local sourcing has really only gained re-acceptance on a wide scale in the last five to ten years, brewers have shown a strong willingness to not only try locally sourced malt and hops, but to increase usage in the future. In a survey of 82 commercial brewers in 28 states, which was completed in spring of 2014, 72% stated intent to use more locally sourced ingredients in the future. When brewers were asked where they wanted to see improvement in the ingredients they use, they most often noted wanting increased consistency, lower prices, and processing that would ensure quality and freshness. However, many brewers noted that this is largely due to the relative youth of local producers, which don’t have the experience of large hop farms and malting facilities that have been operating for several generations. Alec Mull, the Director of Brewing Operations for Founders Brewing Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which uses Michigan-grown hops in its annual Harvest Ale, a wet-hopped IPA, echoed this sentiment.
“Michigan growers have provided us high quality fresh hops that we enjoy every year, and we have seen them improve annually as well. It is important to recognize however that the hops that are grown and processed in the Pacific Northwest have generational experience and investment that provides them a current advantage,” said Mull.
Hometown Yeast
If local malt or hops aren’t available where you live, or if you just want to create a truly local Reinheitsgebot with your ingredients, you can also consider culturing a local yeast strain from the wild. David Thornton, one of the founders of SouthYeast Labs in Clemson, South Carolina is an expert in isolating wild yeast for brewing, and SouthYeast is built upon that principle. Since starting in 2013, SouthYeast has isolated more than 100 different wild yeast strains, which then go through their “Yeast Boot Camp” where they are tested for tolerance to alcohol, impacts on pH, flocculation characteristics, apparent attenuation, ester profiles and more. Roughly 1⁄3 of the strains isolated have passed these tests and made it to further trials, where suitability for brewing is determined. Presently, SouthYeast offers eight different wild yeast strains and a few native yeast blends for sale to both craft and homebrewers, which typically produce farmhouse style ales with a varying array of phenolic and ester profiles. Several local breweries have used their yeast with great success, and homebrewer Jamie Hawthorne even advanced a saison to the National Homebrew Competition’s second round this year using SouthYeast’s B3 strain, isolated from a blueberry.
When looking for ways to isolate local yeast, Thornton suggests looking for damaged fruit, flowers with insect activity, tree sap or bee hives, as all are notorious for harboring yeast. Open-air traps are also an option, but typically have a lower success rate. After deciding on a source, it can be added to a wort solution, with 1.032 as a suggested gravity, combined with yeast nutrients. After a few hours exposure to the air and some agitation, an airlock can be added to allow the wild yeast to begin fermentation. Once complete, this “starter” can be streaked and individual organisms isolated, or stepped up for further propagation.
Brewing Michigan Style
In advance of the National Homebrewers Conference in my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, my local club, The Brewsquitos (http://brewsquitos.com/), bounced around some ideas for what we could do to commemorate the year’s biggest homebrewing party being in our backyard. To create a showcase for the movement of using local brewing ingredients, we settled on creating a series of beers to be served at Club Night made with all Michigan malt, hops and water, which we called the MiIPA Series. This was a perfect opportunity to showcase a burgeoning industry in our state and to give homebrewers a chance to see what an all-Michigan beer would taste like (and if they’d notice any differences from what they expected).
To make this project successful, our club needed buy in from a local hop grower and malt house, which we quickly found in Erik May at Pilot Malt House in Jenison, Michigan, and Brian Tennis, of the Michigan Hop Alliance (MHA). Pilot is one of only two maltsters located in Michigan, and began malting for the first time in 2013, providing malt to more than a dozen local breweries. MHA is a collective of more than a dozen hop growers in northern Michigan, is one of the pioneers in reviving the commercial hop growing industry in Michigan, and is a leading producer of organically grown hops in the state.
In designing the recipes for our project, we took into consideration the ingredients we had at our disposal. As a newer company, Pilot spent its first year refining its base malt offerings, which include 2-row and 6-row barley, along with white and red wheat, all which is Michigan grown. With Michigan growing in reputation as a hop growing state, we decided to use the India Pale Ale style to feature the ingredients we were using, shooting for a clean malt character with a big dose of flavor and aroma from the Michigan grown SummitTM, Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, Crystal and Nugget hops provided by MHA.
To ensure consistency, our club set up two group brew days, the first of which was a club-only event where two double IPAs were produced using two distinctly different blends of hops. For the second brew day, where five different single-hopped IPAs were brewed, we chose Siciliano’s Market Big Brew Day in downtown Grand Rapids as our venue, the largest homebrewing event in West Michigan, and just one block away from where the National Homebrewers Conference would be held just six weeks later. Each brew day employed a single mash split into different kettles for consistency, and despite pesky spring winds and even a bit of rain, we were able to achieve consistent starting gravities leading into fermentation.
We were fortunate to find that once we put our IPAs on tap at Club Night, the results were over-whelmingly positive, with each dis-playing a solid balance with a wealth of hop flavor and aroma. The effect of Northern Michigan’s terroir was also on display, as many attendees noted the difference in hop character in our Michigan grown hops compared to their Pacific Northwest counterparts. As brewers had been reporting, our all-Chinook IPA was light on the piney notes that are often associated with this variety, and instead dis-played big citrus and tropical fruit character. Our SummitTM IPA had a very citrus-forward character with lots of dank notes.
Our project ultimately showed that not only can you homebrew a beer using all locally sourced ingredients, but you can make truly standout beer that has touches of local flavor that can’t be found elsewhere.
Go Local
With the rise of local maltsters and hop growers over the past few years, and as quality improves, locally sourced beers are likely to become easier to find, and the accessibility of these ingredients will continue to grow for both homebrewers and craft brewers alike. In addition to supporting local companies from your area, as a homebrewer you have the opportunity to create a beer that has a true sense of place, both in flavor and story. So perhaps the next time someone is sampling your homebrew, in addition to talking to them about how it was made you can tell them where they can visit the farm where your hops were grown, or that the farmer and maltster who provided your barley are only a short drive away. Doing so might just put a little greater sense of home into your homebrewing.
MiIPA
(5.5 gallons/21 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.063 FG = 1.013
IBU = 59 SRM = 6 ABV = 6.6%
The recipe is formulated to achieve 6.5 gallons (25 L) in the kettle and 5.5 gallons (21 L) in the fermenter
to compensate for the loss of wort due to trub after the boil and then dry hopping. The choice of hops is up to the individual homebrewer.
Ingredients
15 lbs. (6.8 kg) Pilot Malt House
2-row pale malt
1 lb. (0.45 kg) Pilot Malt House white wheat malt
1 lb. (0.45 g) Michigan Malt Co. crystal malt (15 °L)
15 AAU Michigan grown Nugget hops (FWH) (1.25 oz./35 g at 12% alpha acids)
8 AAU Michigan grown Centennial hops (10 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 8% alpha acids)
7.5 AAU Michigan grown Cascade hops (10 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 7.5% alpha acids)
3 oz. (85 g) Michigan grown Chinook hops (0 min.)
1 oz. (28 g) Michigan grown Cascade hops (0 min.)
1 oz. (28 g) Michigan grown SummitTM hops (0 min.)
1.5 oz. (43 g) Michigan grown Chinook (dry hop-6 days)
1 oz. (28 g) Michigan grown SummitTM (dry hop-6 days)
1.5 oz. (43 g) Michigan grown Chinook (dry hop-3 days)
1 oz. (28 g) Michigan grown SummitTM (dry hop-3 days)
0.5 tsp. yeast nutrients (10 min.)
½ Whirlfloc tablet (2 min.)
1 tsp. gelatin (secondary)
Fermentis Safale US-05 or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale) or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale)
Priming sugar (if bottling)
Step by Step
My malts and hops were all locally sourced. Feel free to substitute your own locally sourced malt and hops, or if unavailable, any high quality malts and hops. Mash in with 1.5 qts. (1.4 L) strike water per pound (0.45 kg) of grist to achieve a mash temperature of 149 °F (65 °C) and hold for 60 minutes. Sparge with 168 °F (76 °C) water and collect about 7.75 gallons (29.3 L). During the sparge, add your first wort hop addition. Boil for 75 minutes, adding hops and yeast nutrients with 10 minutes left in the boil. With 2 minutes left in the boil add the Whirlfloc tablet and the final addition of hops at flameout. Chill the wort to 68 °F (20 °C) and aerate thoroughly. Hold at 68 °F (20 °C) for seven days or until primary fermentation dies down, then increase temperature to 72 °F (22 °C) and hold for three days. Transfer beer to secondary at 68 °F (20 °C) and add first round of dry hops. After three days, add second round of dry hops. After three more days, drop the temperature to 30 °F (-1 °C), and add gelatin. Hold at 30 °F (-1 °C) for three days, or until dry hops and yeast have fallen out. Rack to keg and carbonate or rack to bottling bucket, add priming sugar and bottle. Carbonate to 2.2 volumes CO2.
MiIPA
(5.5 gallons/21 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.063 FG = 1.013
IBU = 59 SRM = 6 ABV = 6.6%
The recipe is formulated to achieve 5.5 gallons (21 L) in the fermenter to compensate for the loss of wort due to dry hopping.
Ingredients
6.6 lbs. (3 kg) extra light liquid malt extract
2 lbs. (0.91 kg) wheat dried malt extract
1 lb. (0.45 g) Michigan Malt Co. crystal malt (15 °L)
12 AAU Michigan grown Nugget hops (FWH) (1 oz./28 g at 12% alpha acids)
8 AAU Michigan grown Centennial hops (10 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 8% alpha acids)
7.5 AAU Michigan grown Cascade hops (10 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 7.5% alpha acids)
3 oz. (85 g) Michigan grown Chinook hops (0 min.)
1 oz. (28 g) Michigan grown Cascade hops (0 min.)
1 oz. (28 g) Michigan grown SummitTM hops (0 min.)
1.5 oz. (43 g) Michigan grown Chinook (dry hop-6 days)
1 oz. (28 g) Michigan grown SummitTM (dry hop-6 days)
1.5 oz. (43 g) Michigan grown Chinook (dry hop-3 days)
1 oz. (28 g) Michigan grown SummitTM (dry hop-3 days)
0.5 tsp. yeast nutrients (10 min.)
½ Whirlfloc tablet (2 min.)
1 tsp. gelatin (secondary)
Fermentis Safale US-05 or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale) or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale)
Priming sugar (if bottling)
Step by Step
The hops and malts were all locally sourced. Feel free to substitute your own locally sourced malt and hops, or if unavailable, any high quality malts and hops. Place crushed grains in a muslin bag and soak for 20 minutes in 1 gallon (3.8 L) water at 160 °F (71 °C). Wash the grain bag with 2 qts. (1.9 L) hot water. Top off to 5 gallons and bring to a boil. Off heat, stir in the liquid and dried malt extract as well as the first wort hops. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops and yeast nutrients with 10 minutes left in the boil. With 2 minutes left in the boil add the whirlfloc tablet and the final addition of hops at flameout. Top off the kettle to 5.5 gallons (21 L). Chill the wort to 68 °F (20 °C) and aerate thoroughly. Hold at 68 °F (20 °C) for seven days or until primary fermentation dies down, then increase temperature to 72 °F (22 °C) and hold for three days. Transfer beer to secondary at 68 °F (20 °C) and add first round of dry hops. After three days, add second round of dry hops. After three more days, drop temperature to 30 °F (-1 °C), and add gelatin. Hold at 30 °F (-1 °C) for three days, or until dry hops and yeast have fallen out. Rack to keg and carbonate or rack to bottling bucket, add priming sugar and bottle. Carbonate to 2.2 volumes CO2.
