E-Malt.com News article: USA, IA: Brewmasters are preparing their autumn beers

This year, Sept. 23, is both the first day of autumn and the first day of Des Moines’ eighth annual Oktoberfest downtown. The two-day event, outdoors on Fourth Street, south of Court Avenue, will feature three beers available more than 4,700 miles away at the 178th Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, DesMoinesRegister.com reported on August, 30.

Oktoberfest beer is among the best known of the seasonal, or special-release, beers. Tied to a time of year, and typically brewed to be enjoyed over the span of few months, seasonal beers are winning more and more new fans, by all accounts.

Seasonal beers now fight for shelf space with year-round brands in store coolers. Sales of these limited release beers were up 13.2 percent in food, drug, convenience and major liquor stores in 2010, according to a news release from Heineken which announced last week it was going to release a new bock-style lager for fall and winter months only.

Prior to that announcement, the growing interest in seasonal beers at the metro area’s craft beer pubs was a topic of conversation for local micro-brewers, who enjoyed unprecedented exposure earlier this month when the Iowa Craft Beer Tent was set up for the first time at the Iowa State Fair.

“The response to the tent and our beers really seemed phenomenal,” Jeff Irvin, head brewer at Olde Main Brewing in Ames, said adding that it was great to have 13 Iowa breweries under one roof.

With the State Fair behind them, local brewers will now look ahead to the Oktoberfest time of year, which marks the beginning of the time that special occasions seem to roll over the calendar like waves.

Many local brewers will be cooking up barrels of pumpkin spice beer — just in time for Halloween. This will be followed by other brews, such as chocolate porters for the Christmas season, which will give way to stouts and Irish red ales as St. Patrick’s Day approaches.

Finally when May and June arrive, the lighter, fruitier, more wheaty beers that seem more refreshing in summer return to keep the year-round brews company.

“Getting to brew different beers at different times of the year is part of the fun,” said Eric Sorensen, who is the medal winning brewmaster at Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery in West Des Moines.

The first keg of Sorensen’s Oktoberfest-style beer is scheduled to be tapped on Sept. 13, which is three days before the first keg will be tapped at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.

At Peace Tree Brewing in Knoxville, head brewer Joe Kesteloot won’t offer an Oktoberfest style beer this year, but he’s a huge fan of seasonal beers, he said.

“I love doing seasonals because they pique people’s interest for something new,” he said.

One of Peace Tree’s seasonal beers was developed to celebrate Iowa sweet corn season.

Using several bushels of sweet corn Kesteloot last August brewed 80 barrels of a light and slightly sweet Belgian-style ale that he named Cornucopia. It was so popular that he is brewing another batch with this year’s sweet corn.

Most local brewmasters already have game plans in place for the months ahead when they will add seasonal beers with more dynamisme, such as stouts, imperial ales and double IPAs

Thanks to an 18-month-old law that essentially removed alcohol-limit handcuffs from Iowa brewers, many of these heavier seasonal beers will have the kind of cooler-weather heft sought by many connoisseurs.

Prior to March, 2010, Iowa micro-breweries were not allowed to sell beer with an alcohol content of more than 5 percent, even though it was legal for breweries from other states to sell beer with alcohol content up to 12 percent in Iowa.

Now, because of the less restrictive law, “all of us are able to expand what we’re doing and what we’re offering,” Raccoon River Brewing’s David Coy said, adding that he’s just started pouring a new ale — Midnight Bandit IPA — that has a 7.8 percent alcohol content.

Since Court Avenue Brewing opened in 1996 as a trailblazer of the local micro-brewery scene, seasonal beers have been part of the menu mix. But it has taken years for central Iowans to cozy up to the idea of change and variety, said Coy, who started brewing in 1997 at Raccoon River and has the most brewing experience of the metro’s commercial brewers.

“Years ago, you had to work hard to convince some people to try anything new or different,” he said. “Now, most of our customers come in just expecting a variety of styles and flavors through the year.”

While certainly welcomed, the increase in the popularity of seasonal beers has created a minor problem for micro-brewers, many of whom are sticklers for tradition.

Some local brewers complained that the major mass production breweries are releasing some of their seasonal, such as Oktoberfest-style and pumpkin spice, weeks ahead of when the calendar dictates they should be released.

“What happens is that someone goes to the store and sees a pumpkin ale in August and we start getting calls asking when our pumpkin ale is going to be ready,” Rock Bottom’s Sorensen said.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like going to a department store and seeing the Christmas decorations up in August,” Coy said. “People seem to be expecting the Oktoberfest beers and pumpkin earlier and earlier every year.”


02 September, 2011