Wijn na Bier geeft...

Geachte micro-brouwer,

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Wenst u Fritz Maytag III achteraan te gaan?, ex-eigenaar van Anchor Steam Brewery en één van de grondleggers van de Amerikaanse Craft Beer Movement. Grijp nu uw kans, want de nieuwste trend is al volop aan de gang in Amerika als je de Seven Fifty Daily mag geloven.

For Many Craft Breweries, Winemaking is the Next Frontier To broaden their sales base, breweries are reaching beyond the beer drinker by producing natural wines, piquettes, fruited spritzes, and more

Photo courtesy of Odell Brewing.

Several years ago, Odell Brewing sought internal input on how to repurpose an underused building. The employee-owned brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado, empowers its owners to generate business ideas, and a maintenance team member proposed winemaking. Wine? Hmm. Odell has brewed beer since 1989, back when the brand was a pioneer in a wide-open craft market that has, over the decades, steadily become congested with competition. Making wine could widen Odell’s potential audience, building a broader customer base beyond the IPA crowd. “There’s a portion of the community that either can’t or chooses not to drink beer,” says director of marketing Alex Kayne. In fall 2019, Odell started sourcing grapes from Pacific Northwest growers such as Oregon’s Goschie Farms, a longtime Odell hop supplier. The following June, the company debuted the first four releases of the OBC Wine Project, including a sparkling rosé and a Pinot Gris-based blend packaged in 375-milliliter cans. Both highlight Odell’s name, a handshake between wine and beer. “Sometimes these industries can be portrayed as so far apart,” says Kayne. “Agriculturally, they couldn’t be closer.” Don’t miss the latest drinks industry news and insights. Sign up for our award-winning Daily Dispatch newsletter—delivered to your inbox every week. For years, breweries have tried courting wine drinkers by adding crushed grapes, juice, and pomace to IPAs, saisons, and barrel-aged sour ales. The best examples could channel a wine’s moxie, but going halfway wasn’t always enough. (Legally, at least 51 percent of a beer’s fermentable sugars must come from grain.) “I’ve had amazing wine-beer hybrids, but part of the reason I loved them was because they’re as vinous a beer that you can make,” says Tim Gormley, a founder and the director of development for Burial Beer in Asheville, North Carolina. “Perhaps it would’ve been better if it was just a wine.”

Verder lezen? Klil op de link: For Many Craft Breweries, Winemaking is the Next Frontier | SevenFifty Daily