Lessons From Oklahoma

I had the great pleasure to speak at a joint event by two homebrew clubs in Tulsa and Stillwater last week (FOAM and Stillwater League), and while I was visiting Oklahoma, Tempest in a Tankard’s Franz Hofer took me to ten breweries in three cities. Parachuting into any region is never going to provide me the nuances of a place, but the exercise is far from futile. Like plunging into icy water, the rush of experience is immediate and startling, and a place’s unique character delivers a sharp shock. Step back far enough, and most American beer culture looks the same. Spend three days touring ten breweries (and visiting two more), and you see a place’s distinctiveness.

Whether or not you have been to Oklahoma or ever plan to go, I suspect that, like me, you’ll find its nature compelling. Places aren’t the same, and in looking closely, we learn something about our country we didn’t know before. So in that spirit, here are my reflections.

State Question 792

The liquor laws of Oklahoma, like many states, are weird. Or they were until 2018. From Prohibition until the mid-teens, the beer laws were very restrictive. Breweries could only sell “low-point” beer (3.2% ABW / 4% ABV) at grocery stores. If they wanted to sell anything stronger, it had to go to liquor stores but—and this is one of the weirder things I’ve ever heard—it had to be sold unrefrigerated. Apparently everyone hated this system, so in 2016 a referendum, State Question 792, went to the ballot and the voters approved it by a two-to-one margin.

The law finally got implemented a couple years later and now everything is basically normal. The consequence of the old laws, however, was to greatly inhibit commercial brewing and (I think) encourage homebrewing. In the five years since the laws were changed, Oklahoma has enjoyed a spike in new breweries. It creates a feeling of excitement and anticipation I remember from the early 1990s in Oregon. People are not jaded or cynical about beer in Oklahoma. Moreover, the community is still comparatively small, and everybody knows everybody else. Many started as homebrewers, so there’s also a grassroots start-up feel about Oklahoma beer.

Oklahoma is different in another significant way. While it’s famously conservative, it also has the second highest proportion of Native Americans in the country at about 13%. That may understate the number connected to one of the many local tribes, though, and I kept hearing people mention 20% as the native population. Two of the breweries I visited were native-owned or had historical connections to native culture. I don’t know what to say about that beyond that it makes the state feel different than a place like Idaho, say, which is also conservative but lacking a strong minority presence.

Oklahoma Beer

It will come as no surprise that Oklahoma’s beer-drinking culture is still developing. You’re less likely to find lagers or anything unusual in tap, and more likely to find IPAs that are a few years behind the curve. Yet Oklahoma has an interesting recent history. The two most prominent breweries are Prairie Artisan Ales and American Solera, founded in 2012 and 2016. Both founded by Chase Healey, they were conceived as farmhouse and wild-ale projects. Indeed, I was startled to learn that in Oklahoma, “saison” means mixed-fermentation wild ales, not Dupont-style saisons. Neither brewery really makes them anymore, having drifted in other directions. Nevertheless, Healey’s early ambitions were important in communicating a sense of place to Oklahoma beer—one the state still retains.

Based on the sample of breweries I saw, it is headed in a more familiar direction, possibly with an asterisk or two. Let’s review the breweries I visited to get a sense of what’s available. I’ll mention them in the order I visited.

Coop Ale Works (Oklahoma City). Founded in 2009, Coop counts as one of the OGs of Oklahoma beer. A packaging brewery, they make 15,000 barrels a year and two thirds of their production is F5, and old-school IPA.
Prairie Artisan Ales (OKC). An unusual brewery that focuses largely of flavored kettle sours and barrel aged stouts. Even their “normal” styles—and there are few of them, bend in the flavored direction. The sours are very clean and some are quite elegant. Others are for sweet-thooths only (sweet-teeth?).
Skydance (OKC). I’m going to do a separate post about brewer Jake Keyes’ exceptional IPAs—among the best I’ve found.
Big Friendly (OKC). A small brewery and taproom in a new Scandinavian-inflected development that specializes in low-ABV beer, with an emphasis on lagers. Founded by brothers Will and Joe Quinlin, the brewery won one of the brewery of the year awards at the 2022 GABF. They also had a one of the standout beers of the trip—a 3.5% leichtbier (light beer) that was herbal, malty, and full-bodied enough to drink like a 4.8% beer. They started with a converted school bus they’d converted into a rolling pub.

Choc Beer/Pete’s Place (Krebs). For some reason, Krebs attracted a large contingent of Italian immigrants, who went on to create fusion food and cuisine with local natives, including the homebrewed local specialty, Choctaw or “choc” beer. In 1995, descendants who owned a restaurant did a revival of Choc beer. We ate lunch at the restaurant and chatted with Joe Prichard and his son Zach, who now runs it. They’re characters, but especially Joe, who has a thick accent. (The brewery bought Prairie some years back, illustrating how nested everything is there.)
BierKraft (McAlester). Co-founded by legendary homebrewer William “Scotty” Scott, one of the folks who helped bring attention to grodziskie in the US. It’s a tiny place and they brew mostly German styles—and very well. (They beat Düsseldorf breweries in the altbier category in the most recent European Beer Star competition.)
Stonecloud (OKC/Stillwater). I visited the new Stillwater taproom of this well-regarded Oklahoma City brewery. It was one of the only breweries to offer a full-spectrum of beer styles. The menu was huge and they do lager and hoppy ales well.
Heirloom Rustic Ales (Tulsa). Native Oklahoman Jake Miller cut his teeth at Wolves and People in Oregon, went to St Somewhere in Florida, and was another to pursue farmhouse ales. He has managed to cultivate steady and passionate but limited interest in these styles—so he’s turned to lagers. The brewery also benefits from a fantastic barbecue truck.
Marshall (Tulsa). The one other brewery that, like Stonecloud, casts a wide net. They have one side-pull tap and two beer engines, all serving appropriate beers. I especially enjoyed the pub ale they had on cask. It also features a taproom with the best vibe we visited. Tons of brick, big windows, and bier hall-style long tables.
American Solera (Tulsa). Housed in an enormous space that still has a coolship and foeders, American Solera has now become largely a hazy house. Of the 13 beers they had on tap, eight were IPAs. I was impressed with the one mixed-ferm beer they offered, but the lagers had off flavors and the hoppy beers were rough and burn-y. For a brewery with such a huge national reputation, I was surprised to find that.

What did I learn? For one we’re at the beer-as-passion-project stage of brewing. The owners and brewers I met had that quasi-evangelical feel of people who want to spread the good word. They have very specific and often niche interests, and it comes out in their beer. Consumers are still relatively sparse and new to craft beer, so culture hasn’t developed nor homogenized yet. (To many drinkers’ dismay, the sign of mature culture is less choice, not more.)

Critically, good beer isn’t everywhere. People who want it have to seek it out. I was shocked when, every time we walked into a brewery, Franz would sigh and report that they didn’t distribute to his hometown of Stillwater—an hour from OKC and Tulsa. (That’s why the towns beer geeks are overjoyed with the new Stonecloud taproom.) Stillwater is a town of 50,000, anchored by Oklahoma Sate—exactly the kind of place where people would be interested in craft culture and willing to pay $7 for a pint of IPA. As an Oregon example, it would be like breweries skipping Corvallis.

It’s a moment in time, and it will change. The excitement about good beer, the vibrancy of homebrewing communities, and the quality of the tentpole breweries will eventually seep into the larger beer drinking population.

As to the character of Oklahoma beer—that’s an open question. Despite developing a reputation for farmhouse ales, the Sooner state isn’t going to be known for wild beer or saisons (conventional definition). It may tilt toward lagers like its neighbor to the south, or it may embrace IPAs—or go a direction other American states haven’t. If I had to bet, I’d guess IPAs will conquer Oklahoma, but not solely because that’s a safe bet. Single breweries can have an outsize effect on the character of a region, and I have my eye on Skydance as a brewery that may become the new national ambassador for Oklahoma beer—and the IPA standard locals aspire to. But it deserves its own post, so stay tuned for that.

It was a huge amount of fun to see Oklahoma, and to Franz, Rebecca, and all the folks who showed me a great time (names withheld to protect the innocent), thanks so much. It was awesome!