Open Thread Friday: Most Characteristic American Breweries
One of the things I'd like to do in The Beer Bible (the Beer Bible--even I don't know) is give a verbal tour of certain breweries that offer insight into a country or style of brewing. For those of us who have had the opportunity to go on actual tours, it's wonderfully educational--I thought it might be in print, too. For example, I wrote about Fuller's to describe both British ale brewing but also parti-gyle brewing--a relative rarity in the beer world. I'll write about Rodenbach and Boon/Cantillon and Orval.
I'd like to include an American brewery or two (or three). The problem: there are 1700 of them and the ones I've seen are largely in Oregon. So here's your charge, should you be willing to take it: offer your choice and tell me what makes it illustrative of American brewing as well as somehow unique. A couple examples I've been thinking about.
1. Double Mountain. Reasons: the brewery is a great example of a classic American craft brewery on the one hand--they do lots of beers wholly characteristic of the region
(pick an IPA, any IPA), and tend to put an American twist on every style they brew. Double Mountain is also a brewery evolving into something distinctively local. Owner/brewer Matt Swihart has orchard land--in one of America's premier fruit-growing regions--and has begun to incorporate his own fruit into Double Mountain's beer.
2. Anheuser-Busch. There's nothing quite so American as a titantic brewery, and there's no brewery quite so titantic as A-B. But more than that, A-B has been a leader in a number of technologies going all the way back to the use of adjuncts in the 19th century. Macro lager might be easily dismissed gastronomically, but as a fixture in the brewing world, it's a little hard to match.
You see how I'm thinking about these things? Give me your ideas--particularly those from beyond Beervana.
I'd like to include an American brewery or two (or three). The problem: there are 1700 of them and the ones I've seen are largely in Oregon. So here's your charge, should you be willing to take it: offer your choice and tell me what makes it illustrative of American brewing as well as somehow unique. A couple examples I've been thinking about.
1. Double Mountain. Reasons: the brewery is a great example of a classic American craft brewery on the one hand--they do lots of beers wholly characteristic of the region
(pick an IPA, any IPA), and tend to put an American twist on every style they brew. Double Mountain is also a brewery evolving into something distinctively local. Owner/brewer Matt Swihart has orchard land--in one of America's premier fruit-growing regions--and has begun to incorporate his own fruit into Double Mountain's beer.2. Anheuser-Busch. There's nothing quite so American as a titantic brewery, and there's no brewery quite so titantic as A-B. But more than that, A-B has been a leader in a number of technologies going all the way back to the use of adjuncts in the 19th century. Macro lager might be easily dismissed gastronomically, but as a fixture in the brewing world, it's a little hard to match.
You see how I'm thinking about these things? Give me your ideas--particularly those from beyond Beervana.