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Craft brewers eye promoting distilled spirits around U.S.

Oakland Tribune, Apr 12, 2006

EVER FEEL like a stranger in a strange land? I did last weekend at an amazing gathering. Many of the participants came from the world of craft beer, people like Fritz Maytag, proprietor of Anchor Brewing, and Bill Owens, who founded Buffalo Bill's in Hayward.

But the subject wasn't craft beer. It was distilled spirits: gin, whiskey, vodka. The location was Distillery No. 209, located on Pier 50, in the shadow of AT&T Park. The occasion was the third annual American Distilling Institute Conference, drawing well over 100 distillers and people interested in distilling from around the country.

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Owens says he got interested in distilling, when his brewer from Buffalo Bill's left to work with distiller Jorg Rupf at St. George Spirits, in Alameda. He toured America looking for legal pot stills, then founded the American Distilling Institute.

At St. George, Rupf makes increasingly famous Hangar One Vodka, with infused fruit flavors like Mandarin Blossom and Citron, as well as St. George Single Malt Whiskey, products that have turned the American distillery business on its ear. Giant companies are flooding the market with copycat vodkas.

But, insiders say, just inhale the intense aroma of Hangar One, then try an industrial vodka. There's no comparison.

We're talking about pot stills here -- sleeker, larger versions of those illegal, backwoods stills celebrated in the old folk classic, "Copper Kettle":

"Get you a copper kettle/And get you a copper coil -- You just lay there by the juniper/ While the moon is high/And watch them jugs a-fillin/In the pale moonlight --"

In the case of whiskey, as I understand it, a fermented, grain mash is washed, the liquid placed in the pot, which is heated. The aromatic, alcoholic vapor that rises is collected and becomes whiskey.

Owens says there are at least 72 licensed pot stills in America; he counts 16 in California, mostly in Northern California. The list includes Anchor, which has been making Old Potrero, a stunning rye whiskey on the first legal whiskey pot still in America in modern times. Anchor now makes a gin, too.

Maytag says that distilling makes sense for a brewer. "Whiskey is distilled beer. without the hops, obviously," he says. "You make a mash and you ferment it and instead of drinking it down as beer, you distill it."

He says large distillers have become a bit modern, using shortcuts and conveniences of production, taking a toll on the sense of history and tradition, just like what happened in the brewing business. Now Maytag and other pot distillers, like craft brewers before them, are trying to set things right.

Distillery No. 209 was founded by Leslie Rudd, owner of Edge Hill winery in St. Helena, who discovered a vine-covered building on the property with a weathered sign proclaiming it Registered Distillery No. 209. The building was too small for a new pot still, so Rudd chose to relocate to San Francisco. Distillery No. 209 technical director Arne Hillesland, a Silicon Valley high tech worker turned distilling alchemist, standing in front of the 25-foot-high pot still, says the trick in making gin, is the botanicals.

Gin must contain juniper berries. But the other ingredients vary widely. Hillesland says his botanicals include an unusual dried orange peel imported from Italy and coriander. Botanicals go into bags that are steeped like teabags in pure grain alcohol.

The liquid is heated, the alcohol and its essential oils and flavors rise up the column and become Distillery No. 209 gin.

None of these products are cheap. Distillery No. 209 gin costs about $35 a 750 ml bottle; Anchor Junipero Gin, about $30. Hangar One Vodka, about $35. Old Potrero costs about $60.

More information on craft distillers can be found at http:// www.distilling.com. For fun, I've posted a list of pot distillers and several gin cocktail recipes on our blogs at http:// www.beernewsletter.com and http://www.insidebayarea.com/beerblog.

Back to the beer

Meanwhile, Anheuser-Busch, with sales of Bud and Bud Light tanking, is taking a long look at the booming craft beer industry where sales rose 9 percent in 2005. A-B has converted an entire bottling line at its giant Fairfield plant on I-80 to organic. The company is test marketing an organic Wild Hop Ale around Santa Rosa. More on that next week.

At the same time, New England and Ohio beer drinkers can go to http://www.originalbeers.com and vote for Anheuser-Busch craft- style beers of their choice, including a 7 percent Devil's Hop Yard IPA in New England and Old Eye Popper, a 5.4 percent German-style dark lager in Ohio.

Personally, I'll vote for Wild Blue, an 8 percent blueberry ale from A-B I sampled last year. It was delicious with a fine, lactic edge. It's still being test marketed in Ohio and other points in the Midwest, A-B says.

-Calendar: April 18, 6 p.m.. Sasquatch Legacy Project. Come to The Bistro, 1001 B. St. in downtown Hayward, and buy a pint of Imperial Red Ale. All proceeds go to the Glen Hay-Falconer Foundation for scholarships to send talented brewers to a course at the World Brewing Academy in Chicago. Glen was a much-respected Eugene, Ore., brewer, who died in an accident in 2002. Three past recipients of the award made the beer for the event, and kegs are making the rounds in Oregon, Washington and Northern California.

Craft brewers eye promoting distilled spirits around U.S.

Oakland Tribune, Apr 12, 2006

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