If each brewery in the US brewed six different beers, there would be nearly 25,000 craft beers to choose from. On the other hand, if you think about an IPA from Vermont or an IPA from Michigan, the variety does become a little less. Never fear. The nation’s brewers are responding to the constant demand for novelty and new tastes with soda pop. Seriously?
Fermented hard-soda are truly a variant of craft beer, depending on yeast and the same complex blending of flavors that happens in the brewing process. Brewers can choose to make beer or soda, simple by choosing recipes. One of the earliest examples of this is Thomas Kemper Root Beer, which two brewers debuted as an Oktoberfest in Paulsboro, Washington in 1990. True, it’s not an alcoholic beverage, but that was a choice made by the brewers. Andy Thomas is currently the CEO of Craft Brew Alliance, and Will Kemper is currently making very nice European style beers as the owner of Chuckanut Brewery in …show more content…
These brewers don’t even think of their products as sodas but as gruit beers, referring to the 16th century German practice of using herbs and other flavorings for bittering, rather than hops. Of course with the Reinheitsgebot (let’s face it – coolest name for a law ever) banning the use of anything other than hops for bittering, it was the end of the gruits, until now. Was there a hops lobby?
The craft brewing movement has succeeded in creating new consumables and resurrecting old ones, including beers that were once lost to time. The hard soft drink expansion is simply further filling in the space of what is possible to brew.
To explore hard sodas, try ones created by a craft brewery, such as Small Town. Other notables include Jed’s, brewed by Sarnac Brewery in Utica, New York, Coney Island, brewed by Boston Beer Company, and New City Ginger Beer from New City Brewing in Easthampton,
Fermented hard-soda are truly a variant of craft beer, depending on yeast and the same complex blending of flavors that happens in the brewing process. Brewers can choose to make beer or soda, simple by choosing recipes. One of the earliest examples of this is Thomas Kemper Root Beer, which two brewers debuted as an Oktoberfest in Paulsboro, Washington in 1990. True, it’s not an alcoholic beverage, but that was a choice made by the brewers. Andy Thomas is currently the CEO of Craft Brew Alliance, and Will Kemper is currently making very nice European style beers as the owner of Chuckanut Brewery in …show more content…
These brewers don’t even think of their products as sodas but as gruit beers, referring to the 16th century German practice of using herbs and other flavorings for bittering, rather than hops. Of course with the Reinheitsgebot (let’s face it – coolest name for a law ever) banning the use of anything other than hops for bittering, it was the end of the gruits, until now. Was there a hops lobby?
The craft brewing movement has succeeded in creating new consumables and resurrecting old ones, including beers that were once lost to time. The hard soft drink expansion is simply further filling in the space of what is possible to brew.
To explore hard sodas, try ones created by a craft brewery, such as Small Town. Other notables include Jed’s, brewed by Sarnac Brewery in Utica, New York, Coney Island, brewed by Boston Beer Company, and New City Ginger Beer from New City Brewing in Easthampton,