Category Archives: Neolocalism

Festivals, Food, Local Beer, Neolocalism

A Taste of Place

July 12, 2023 The Beer Professor Leave a comment

In 2009, Amy Trubek, published her book The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir“. Trubeks’ book is about food. In particular, it is about local food and its connection to place.

One of the concepts that Trubek discusses at some length in her book is that of terroir. You may be familiar with this concept, but if you are not, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines terroir as “the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives wine grapes their distinctive character”. While it is a concept most commonly used within the wine industry, it is being increasingly used in discussions taking place around the craft beer. For example, a number of scientific studies show that the same hop varietal grown in two different places will exhibit different taste and aroma characteristics. A study conducted by scientists at Oregon State University showed that “Cascade hops grown in Oregon were characterized by strong citrus, floral, fruity, herbal and resinous aroma. Cascade hops from Washington displayed more tropical and sweaty aroma”. These findings have been replicated in numerous other studies, including one conducted in Italy. The reasons for these differences are quite simple, different soils and micro-climates impact hops differently. As noted by the Italian researchers, “the differences found in the hops were reflected in the beers, which were clearly recognized as distinct by a sensory panel.” In short, hops have terroir.

Approximately, 95% of all hops harvested in the United States are grown in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) states od Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The growth of craft breweries, however, has resulted in farmers outside of the PNW experimenting with hops as a crop. Their primary customers are local breweries. Hops are now grown in 30+ states outside the PNW. This provides beer drinkers in states such as California, Michigan, and Ohio to taste beer with locally grown hops. And, because of terroir, one can make the case that they are experiencing a s taste of place.

But hops are not the only local crop being used in the brewing of craft beer. Other locally sourced crops are also commonly used. Earlier this spring, I enjoyed a basil honey ale at one of my local breweries, Earnest Brew Works, whose ingredients included locally grown basil. Other examples from across the country abound. Island Brewing Company in Carpinteria, CA brew an avocado honey ale using locally sourced avocados, while Cape May Brewing Company of Cape May, NJ use local beach plums in the making of their Beach Plum IPA.

This basil honey ale from Earnest Brew Works in Toledo, OH included locally grown basil as one of its ingredients.

Some breweries also forage for local ingredients to include in their beer. Foraging simply means “searching for potable ingredients from one’s own property, nearby park or forest, or even neighbors’ backyards” and harvesting these ingredients by hand. For example, Matt Hofmann, the founder of Sahale Ale Works in Grafton, WI brewed a farmhouse ale that included dandelion heads from a nearby nature preserve. In 2015, Bob Kunz, the owner of Highland Park Brewery in Los Angeles, CA produced a Saison using fruits and herbs (lemongrass, sour flower and a half-dozen varieties of lemons and limes) foraged from the back yards of both him and his neighbors. The Saison is appropriately called Yard Beer.

On a recent trip to Italy, I had an opportunity to enjoy another taste of place. I was attending a local food and beer festival in the small town of Lecce nei Marsi (population 1,694) in Italy’s Abruzzo region. One of the local beers available at the festival was an English Browm Ale whose ingredients included the faggiola – beech nuts from local beech trees. The beer, Moricento, is brewed by Beer Park Brewery. What makes Moricento special, at least in my eyes, is that the beech nuts come from ancient beech trees that are located in a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Beechnuts are an ingredient in Moricento English Brown Ale

Moricento – a beer whose ingredients include beech nuts

Lecce nei Marsi is located in the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park. The park covers 50,000 hectares, 60% of which is covered by beech forests. As noted above, the beech forests in the park are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is a somewhat an unusual World Heritage site, as it is part of a chain of beech forests that are spread across eighteen European countries. According to UNESCO, these “ancient beech forests are primeval beech forests that have changed very little over the centuries, because they are preserved in areas that are difficult to reach and because beech trees easily adapt to diverse climatic and geographical conditions. Among the various specimens, there are beech trees over 500 years old”. Thus, when you taste Moricento, you might argue that not only are you sampling a taste of place, but perhaps also a taste of the region’s natural history.

The ancient beech forests of Europe (Source: UNESCO)

Enjoying a taste of Moricento beer at the local food and beer festival in Lecce nei Marse

My Dogfish Head T-Shirt

January 30, 2019 The Beer Professor Leave a comment

In my last blog entry, I examined my collection of fifteen brewery t-shirts and looked at where they were made. Of the fifteen, three were made in the United States and twelve were made in Latin America. The t-shirts made in the United States were from Earnest Brew Works in Toledo, OH, Rhinegeist Brewery in Cincinnati, OH, and Dogfish Head in Milton, DE. As I did more research into the companies that manufactured these particular t-shirts, it was the one from Dogfish Head that really caught my attention.

Dogfish Head is a brewery that I really admire. Established in Rehoboth Beach, DE in 1995, it was, at that time, America’s smallest commercial brewpub. Under the leadership of its charismatic, Sam Calagione, Dogfish Head has went from strength to strength, and by 2017 was the twelfth largest craft brewery in the United States. Over the last two decades, Calagione and Dogfish Head have been at the forefront of creativity and innovation. It was the first brewery to produce a continuously hopped IPA (their iconic 90 Minute IPA). It’s Ancient Ales Program has seen it work with molecular archeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern to recreate and reproduce beers from ancient Turkey, China, Egypt, and a number of far away places and epochs. And just this week, Dogfish Head realeased Slighty Mighty, a low calorie IPA that rivals Michelob Ultra for calories and carbs (95 calories and 3.5 carbs), and “doesn’t taste like seltzer water”.

I have never visited Dogfish Head’s flagship brewery, which is located in Milton, DE, but my oldest daughter has. And when she did, she bought me the aforementioned t-shirt. The t-shirt is manufactured by TS Designs, who are based in Burlington, NC. According to the company’s website, its t-shirts “are made from conventionally grown North Carolina cotton and you can track them through the entire supply chain back to the farmer. You can even meet the farmer yourself during our annual Cotton Harvest Tour.”

My Dogfish Head t-shirt uses 100% North Carolina grown cotton

Tracking my Dogfish Head t-shirt through the entire supply chain back to the farmer sounded intriguing – it certainly appealed to the economic geographer in me. According to theTS Designs website, tracking my t-shirt’s supply chain required going to the website whereyourclothing.com, where it states:

“not only are all of our t-shirts made entirely in the United States, they have completely transparent supply chains. And when we say completely transparent, we mean it! Not only do we give you the location, but a name, photo, address, and even phone number for each member of the supply chain, from dirt to shirt.”

To learn about the supply chain in my Dogfish Head t-shirt, it was simply a case of entering a tracking code. Tracking codes are either printed on the neck label or derived from the colors of the thread sown into the t-shirts arm hem and tail hem. In the case of my Dogfish Head t-shirt, the hems of the sleeves and tail had colored thread sown into them –

Tracking codes for my Dogfish Head t-shirt were derived from the color of the thread inside the hem of the t-shirt’s sleeves and tail.

As I soon learned, my Dogfish Head t-shirt started its life on the cotton farm of Thurman Burleson & Sons Farm in Wadesboro, NC. From there is passed through the hands of eight other companies. These included a cotton gin, yarn spinners, fabric knitters, fabric finishers, and cutters/sewers, before ending up at the print and dye facility of TS Designs in Burlington. All ten of the plants involved in the making of my t-shirt are located in North Carolina and South Carolina. Information about each participant in my t-shirt’s supply chain is provided on the whereyourclothing.com website, and appears after you enter your t-shirt’s tracking information. You can read these descriptions below (for the Dogfish Head t-shirt I own), as well as view the map showing the location of each manufacturer who contributes to the final product.

All ten of the plants that played a part in making my Dogfish Head t-shirt are located in North Carolina

Learning about the supply chain of my Dogfish Head t-shirt was fun, interesting, and informative. I would not want to replicate this search for information for every piece of clothing that I own (even if it were possible). But it was, as I said, informative to do it for one t-shirt. I was only vaguely aware of the various steps involved in producing a t-shirt, and so this educated me on the t-shirt manufacturing process. As someone who teaches Economic Geography, I fully understand the economics behind sourcing t-shirts from cheap labor countries overseas. So I say kudos to Dogfish Head for purchasing and selling t-shirts whose provenance is one hundred percent American.

Craft Breweries, International, Neolocalism

Made in Honduras

January 21, 2019 The Beer Professor Leave a comment

Craft breweries typically have strong connections with their local communities. These connections are manifest in a number of ways. The owners usually live in town. The brewery provides space for activities such as a local yoga club, and several times a year they brew a special beer, part of the profits of which are donated to local charitable causes. In discussing craft breweries, George Homewood, Norfolk, Virginia’s director of planning and community development, notes:

“there is a different food truck outside nightly. Depending upon the brewery, there may be yoga on Sundays, trivia on Wednesdays, retro video games on Thursdays, and music on Saturdays as well as neighborhood block parties, a monthly pet adoption day or a free community meal.”

Regardless of where we live, all of us know local breweries who support their communities in these types of way. Some breweries are so proud of their local community that they name beers after local landmarks, historical figures, or important events in the community’s past. A growing number of breweries are even trying to source more of their ingredients, particularly hops, from the local region. For some breweries, one of their major contributions to the community is simply to provide a gathering place for locals; a refuge of sorts where neighborhood residents can come, meet up with a few friends, and enjoy a couple of beers.

And craft beer drinkers seem to appreciate this commitment to local communities and are very happy to support the locally-owned brewery, rather than the faceless multinational corporation (e.g., AB InBev or Heineken). There’s even a name or this preference for the local – it’s called “neolocalism”. The geographer, Steven M. Schnell defines neolocalism as a “conscious attempt of individuals and groups to establish, rebuild, and cultivate local ties, local identities, and increasingly, local economies.” Writing specifically about craft breweries, Schnell and his co-author Joseph Reese, stated that craft breweries represent a desire on the part of increasing numbers of people to “reestablish connections with local communities, settings, and economies”.

There is no doubt that buying a locally brewed beer supports a local business. Advocates of purchasing locally produced food are quick to point out the economic, social, and environmental benefits of doing so – keeping more money in the local community, encouraging cultural diversity, preserving genetic diversity etc. On the other hand, economists Jason Winfred and Philip Watson point out buying local conflicts with Ricardo’s two hundred year old principle of comparative advantage. Of course, there is the whole issue of what constitutes “local”, a topic I discussed in a previous blog entry.

Many breweries are rightly proud of the contributions they make to their local communities. And on their websites, they are not hesitant to articulate their community commitment. Crazy Mountain Brewing Company of Denver, CO, for example, state that, “although beer is our passion, one of Crazy Mountain’s core values is our commitment to community involvement”. According to Fairport Brewing Company in Fairport, NY, “our commitment to the local community run deep”, while Roadhouse Brewery of Jackson Hole, WY is “committed to supporting the local community of Jackson Hole”.

I got to thinking about craft breweries and their connections to the local economies the other day, when I was putting away a t-shirt that my oldest daughter had gave me as a Christmas gift. It was a t-shirt from Boulevard Brewing Company in Kansas City, MO. My daughter had been to Boulevard recently, while visiting a friend in Kansas City. I visited Boulevard myself while attending a conference in Kansas City in June of last year. Anyway, as I picked up the t-shirt I looked at the label just inside the collar. I was curious as to where the t-shirt was made. The label said, “Made in Honduras”. That got me wondering – where were all my other brewery t-shirts made? How many were made in the United States? I took each of them from the closet and examined them. Here is what I found:

Bare Arms Brewing, Waco, TX – Nicaragua
Black Cloister Brewing Company, Toledo, OH – Nicaragua
Boulevard Brewing Company, Kansas City, MO – Honduras
Church Brew Works, Pittsburgh, PA – Nicaragua
Dogfish Head, Milton, DE – USA
Earnest Brew Works, Toledo, OH – USA
Elevator Brewing, Columbus, OH – Mexico
Grapevine Brewery, Grapevine, TX – Nicaragua
Kona Brewing Company, Kona, HI – Mexico
Lansing Brewing Company, Lansing, MI – Mexico
Market Garden Brewery, Cleveland, OH – Nicaragua
Maumee Bay Brewing Company, Toledo, OH – Nicaragua
Pike Brewing Company, Seattle, WA – Honduras
Rhinegeist Brewery, Cincinnati, OH – USA
Round Barn Brewery, Baroda, MI – Honduras

First off, I own fifteen t-shirts from breweries. I never knew that. Of the fifteen t-shirts, seven were made in Nicaragua, three in Mexico, three in the United States, and two in Honduras. Now I fully realize that my fifteen t-shirts do not constitute a scientifically valid sample, so I am not going to make any generalizations regarding the larger population of American breweries. Thinking scientifically, I thought that it might be interesting to have a control group. So, I randomly selected fifteen of my non-brewery t-shirts that I had purchased in the United States, and examined their labels. All of them were manufactured in Latin America – five in Mexico, four in Nicaragua, and three each in Honduras and El Salvador. These, albeit non-scientific, findings do hint at the possibility that American craft breweries may be more prone to purchase American made t-shirts than the average retailer.

My t-shirt from Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, PA was made in Nicaragua

That most of the brewery t-shirts I own are made in Latin American countries did not surprise me. I teach this stuff in my Industrial Geography course at The University of Toledo. By and large, it comes down to labor costs. Manufacturing labor costs are significantly cheaper in Latin America than in the United States. For example, according to IVEMSA, a company that assists U.S. companies interested in establishing manufacturing facilities in Mexico, American manufacturers who locate in Mexico will pay 20-30% less in labor costs. Add to that a forty-eight hour work week (before requiring overtime pay) and the advantages of manufacturing in Mexico soon become apparent.

Three breweries in my non-scientific sample do sell t-shirts manufactured in the United States. They are Dogfish Head in Milton, DE, Earnest Brew Works in Toledo, OH, and Rhinegeist Brewery in Cincinnati, OH. The t-shirts sold by Earnest Brew Works and Rhinegeist Brewery are made by American Apparel, who are based in Los Angeles, CA. The company makes apparel in countries all over the world, including Bangladesh, Honduras, and the United States. Interestingly, one of American Apparel’s commitments is supporting the economies in which they are located. They do this by “using local suppliers for transportation, food services and raw materials and accessories for our production facilities such as dyes, buttons, zippers, boxes and office supplies.” The two American Apparel t-shirts I have were as I mentioned above, made in the USA. The components used to manufacture these two t-shirts came both from the United States and other countries

My t-shirt from Rhinegeist Brewery was made in the USA, with US and imported components

The t-shirt sold by Dogfish Head Brewery is manufactured by a company called TS Designs, who are based in Burlington, NC. Not only are TS Designs’ t-shirts made in North Carolina, the cotton that they are made from is grown in North Carolina.

It would be nice if more breweries who sold t-shirts, baseball caps, wool hats and other souvenir items sourced those from inside the United States. If these items came from inside or close to the community in which they reside it would be another indication that the breweries are committed to supporting their local and/or regional economy.

Craft Beer And Hops

August 11, 2018 The Beer Professor Leave a comment

This is my third blog entry that deals specifically with the topic of hops. You can read the other two entries here and here.

Hops are one of the four essential ingredients of beer – the other three are water, malted barley, and yeast. As such, hops serve a number of functions. First, they act as a bittering agent. Second, they contribute to a beer’s aroma. Third, they have preservative qualities. There are three basic types of hops – alpha, aroma, and dual purpose. The primary function of alpha hops is to provide a beer with its bitterness, while aroma hops, as the name suggests, contribute to the aroma of a beer. Dual purpose hops combine bittering and aroma characteristics.

I’ve been reading quite a bit about hops recently, as well as looking at some data, trying to identify how demand for hops might be changing in response to the growing popularity of craft beer. This interest stems from a project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The project, which includes colleagues from Rutgers University, Pennsylvania State University, and Simon Fraser University, is concerned with isolating the existence of what are termed agricultural clusters in the United States. As a piece of this much larger project, I have been looking at the impact that the growth of craft beer has had on the hops industry. In my research, I believe that I have identified three major impacts:

An overall incease in demand for hops
Demand for a greater diversity of hop varieties
The geographic expansion of hop production, out of the industry’s Pacific Northwest core.

Let me now examine each of these in turn.

Incresed Demand for Hops

Not surprisingly, the volume of hops produced and used in a given year varies. A number of factors impacts these volumes, including weather conditions and fluctuations in demand from breweries. The chart below shows the number of pounds of hops held by growers, dealers, and brewers on March 1, for each year between 1948 and 2018. What is particularly noticeable about this graph is the sharp increase in hop stocks held by these three groups, starting in 2011. This increase corresponds quite nicely with the significant increase in the number of craft breweries that started around the same time (see second chart).

So why might more craft breweries result in an increased demand for hops? Well, a major reason is that many of the styles of beer brewed by craft breweries use more hops than the beers produced by macro-brewers such as Anheuser-Busch. A typical craft beer (if there is indeed such a thing) contains up to five times more hops than a macro beer. The first chart below shows the number of pounds of hops used to produce a keg of different styles of beer. Lagers and pilsners, the most common type of beer produced by macro-brewers, use 0.19 and 0.31 pounds of hops per keg respectively. All of the other styles of beer shown (except Ambers and Hefeweizen) use more hops. For example, IPAs use a pound of hops per keg, while Imperial Stouts and Imperial IPAs use 0.87 and 3.8 pounds per keg respectively. As the second chart below shows, IPAs (which tend to use a lot of hops) represent over twenty-five percent of the American craft beer market.

Source: USAHops

Demand for Greater Diversity of Hop Varieties

Another feature of craft breweries is that they tend to use a greater variety of different types of hops than macro-breweries. As noted above, there are three basic types of hop – alpha, aromatic, and dual purpose. Macro-brewers, such as Anheuser-Busch, use primarily alpha hops when brewing beers such as Budweiser. Craft brewers, in contrast, use larger amounts of aroma and dual purpose hops. For example, an examination of types of hops harvested in the state of Washington (the country’s leading hop producer) in 2007, shows that 73.2% of the harvested acreage were alpha hops. By 2017, alpha hops accounted for only 26% of the harvested acreage in the state. In contrast, aroma and dual purpose hops accounted for 40% and 25.9% of Washington hops in 2017, respectively (the numbers do not add up to 100% here because data disclosure rules meant that there were some hops that could not be placed in one of the three categories). This represents a fundamental shift in hop production, which reflects a fundamental shift in demand.

Another way that I analyzed the hop data was to examine what I term the Four Hop Concentration Ratio. This is a simple number that indicates the percentage of hop production accounted for by the top four hop varieties. Again, I looked at data from the state of Washington. In 2007, the top four varieties accounted 71.1% of hops harvested in Washington. In 2017, the top four varieties accounted for only 39.1%. These numbers suggest that Washington farmers were growing a greater variety of different types of hop in 2017, than in 2007. When I examined the top four hop varieties in each of the two years, I noticed another important shift. In 2007, the top four hops harvested in Washington were Zeus, Columbus/Tomahwak, Willamette, and Galena. Three of these four (Zeus, Columbus/Tomahawk, and Galena) are alpha hops. Only Willamette are aroma hops. In 2017, the top four hops harvested in Washington were Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, and Citra. None of these are alpha hops. Cascade and Citra are aroma hops, while Centennial and Simcoe are dual purpose.

The demand for diversity in hops reflects the diversity of beer styles and flavors/aromas that craft brewers produce. Different styles of beer require different combinations of different hop varieties. Even within the same style (e.g. IPA) individual brewers will combine different hop varieties as they seek to attain a particular flavor profile. Particular hop varieties are suited for Brewing specific styles of beer. For example, Azacca hops, which are alpha hops and impart notes of citrus, mango, and pineapple are ideal for pale ales and IPAs. Willamette, in contrast, are aroma hops that have floral, fruity, and herbal notes and are most commonly used in pale ales, bitters, and stouts. And of course, in the hands of a creative and innovative brewer, who knows what hop varieties will be combined with what other hop varieties, to generate exciting tastes and aromas. Craft breweries tend to be quite open in revealing the hop varieties that they use in a particular beer. In fact, displaying the hop varieties used in a particular brew, on the can or bottle, is not uncommon. My oldest daughter bought me a variety pack of beer for my birthday last month. Two of the beers were from Platform Beer Company in Columbus, OH. One, Chasing the Horizon, was a Black New England IPA, while the other, Seeing Sounds, was a small batch IPA. On the cans were the hops used in the brewing of each beer. In the case of Chasing the Horizon, four hop varieties were used – Callista (aroma), Simcoe (dual purpose), Eukanot (aroma), and Mosain (aroma) were used. For Seeing the Sounds, the hops were Galena (alpha), El Dorado (dual purpose), Citra (aroma), and Centennial (dual purpose).

Platform Beer Company cans displays the hops used in each beer

Geographic Expansion of Hop Production

A final trend that I have noted in my research on hops is the geographic expansion of hop production. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho represent the heartland of American hop production. In 2017, these three states accounted for 95.5% of the acres of hops harvested in the United States. As few years earlier, in 2014, the three Pacific Northwest states had accounted for 97.7% of the acres of hops harvested. Gradually, in recent years, farmers in states outside of the Pacific Northwest have started to grow hops. Hops are now grown in twenty-nine states across the country. After, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, the top three states for hop production are Michigan, New York , and Colorado. The map below shows hop growing States in 2017. Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are in red, and the orange states are the other states growing hops. The expansion of hop production outside of its core states is driven by demand from some craft brewers for locally-grown hops. At the same time, farmers see an opportunity to expand and diversify their portfolio of crops.

So, it appears that the increasing popularity of craft beer is changing the hop industry. Not only is there a demand for more hops, but there is a demand for a greater diversity of hop varieties. In particular, there is an increased demand for aroma and dual purpose hops, which, together, are now more popular than alpha hops. Finally, production of hops is increasing outside of the Pacific Northwest, as more brewers demand locally-grown hops.

How Many Breweries?

January 9, 2018 The Beer Professor Leave a comment

Every now and then, I come across a headline that raises the question as to whether we are reaching saturation point with respect to the number of craft breweries that we have in the United States. Very often, the question is asked with regard to a particular Continue reading How Many Breweries? →

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