E-Malt.com News article: USA, CO: Avery Brewing to produce low-alcohol beers

Avery Brewing will release, probably sometime next year, the first of what could be a trilogy of low-alcohol beers, westword.com reported on September, 7.

The brewery is experimenting with a couple of those beers right now, a hoppy ale called 3Point5 Session - the fourth iteration of this beer is currently available in the taproom - a small stout and a "something else," Avery Brewing spokesman Joe Osborne says, possibly a weiss beer.

"We're really well known for our strong ales and our forays into that genre," Osborne says. "But we're always innovating, period."

And innovating will take the Boulder brewery in the opposite direction from the massive, high-alcohol beers that it has specialized in.

"We're trying to find sub-4 percent ABV beers with a lot of flavor. The end goal is to can them, but we're still in the proving stage of 3Point5. And as for the small stout, they haven't even let anyone out of the tasting group try it yet," he adds.

"It's hard to get something with a lot of flavor out of low ABV beers and to do it well and do it consistently, so you're starting with a challenge right off the bat," Osborne notes. "But great brewers are always going to challenge themselves."

He also acknowledges that several craft brewers in Colorado (like Great Divide and Breckenridge) and around the country are trying out low-alcohol beers: "It may be part of a trend, but it's also because people don't always want an 11 percent beer. I think a number of brewers are hitting on that at the same time."

At the moment, there are no sub-4 percent ABV packaged craft beers on the market in Colorado (excluding the 3.2 versions that New Belgium and Boulder Beer make for sale in grocery stores). The closest are Breckenridge Brewery's Agave Wheat and Ska Brewing's Mexican Logger, both at 4.2 percent.


11 September, 2012