E-Malt.com News article: USA: Organic beer still represents less than 1 percent of U.S. beer sales, but those sales are booming

Domestic sales of organic food and drink grew from $1 billion in 1990 to $14 billion in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Organic beer still represents less than 1 percent of U.S. beer sales, but those sales doubled to $19 million between 2003 and 2005 (the last year with available figures), according to the Organic Trade Association, azcentral.com communicated on August 21st. In 2005, organic beer ranked with coffee as the fastest-growing organic beverage.

At Butte Creek Brewing Co. of Chico, Calif., whose product line is almost entirely organic, first quarter 2007 sales were up 60 percent over last year. And organic beer, brewing professionals say, has shed its associations with a hippie fringe.

"Originally people thought, Organic beer? What's that? Why would you want that?' but not anymore," says Scott Burchell, Butte Creek's director of sales. "The organic beer industry is booming."

Hops hunt

USDA standards for organic beer are the same as those for organic foods: ingredients must be grown without toxic pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, in soil free from chemicals for at least three years, and no genetically modified ingredients can be used in brewing.

Organic beer began appearing on store shelves in the late 1990s. Butte Creek was a green pioneer when it released its first bottled organic beer in 1998. Santa Cruz Mountain, founded two years ago, is one of but two or three domestic brewers to produce only organic beer.

The number of brewers making organic beers might be larger except for several challenges. The organic certification process can be expensive and burdensome, and independently-minded brewfolk aren't known for their love of paperwork. It can also be expensive, especially for small, craft brewers, to maintain separate equipment for organic brewing. And, it turns out, "some of the raw ingredients for organic beer can be difficult to secure," says Maureen Reinsch, New Belgium's area manager for Nevada and northern California.

Reinsch was referring to hops, the dried flowers of the female hop plant that are used to stabilize and flavor beer.

Organic hops are 20 percent to 30 percent more expensive than conventional hops, according to Todd Ashman, brewmaster of the new FiftyFifty Brewery and Restaurant in Truckee, Nev., who once sold organic brewing ingredients.

Brewers must import organic hops, especially those from New Zealand, because hops grown commercially in the United States are sprayed with pesticides to fight mites, mildew and other plagues. Only a few varieties of hops are grown organically; non-organic varieties number in the dozens.

This imbalance, some brewers say, produces organic beers with limited or inconsistent flavors. But that may not be a bad thing.

"Every batch is not going to taste the same, but our customers are intrigued by that," says Emily Thomas, an owner of Santa Cruz Mountain.

As with organic or biodynamic winemaking, it's difficult to prove objectively if organic brewing improves flavor. The lack of chemical residue on organic ingredients leads to smoother fermentation and cleaner beer, according to some brewers.

But without discounting the importance of flavor, Thomas adds, "organic brewing isn't only about that. It's really about taking responsibility for the environment."

Enter the giant

Craft brewers, those non-automated, small-production houses that employ traditional brewing methods, were the first U.S. brewers to create organic beer, and organics and craft brewing seem like a natural, commonsense fit.

But about a year ago, brewing behemoth Anheuser-Busch debuted organic beer under its Wild Hop and Stone Mill labels, instantly reshaping the organic brewing industry.

Anheuser-Busch's entry into organic beer suggests a strong future market. At the same time, the company has been criticized for using less than 10 percent organic hops in its beer. (Although hops contribute mightily to flavor, they constitute a minuscule percentage of a finished beer, and so Anheuser-Busch's new labels still meet the USDA's requirement that 95 percent of ingredients be organic to qualify for certification.)

Still, despite worries that Anheuser-Busch might dilute organic standards or consume an outsize share of the world's organically grown hops, craft brewers haven't greeted the giant's organic efforts with the same opprobrium that, say, small organic farmers greeted Wal-Mart's organics program.

"When somebody big like Anheuser-Busch gets into organics, it always increases visibility, and it's good for the organic brewing industry as a whole," says Larry Berlin, brewmaster of Butte Creek. "They can get into supermarkets my beer may never get into. People see organic beer who might never have seen it. It's always good to see organics getting mainstream acceptance."





22 August, 2007