Right on, Mr. Orwell! | Philly Beer Scene

Dirt to draft: giving new meaning to the word local.

The dirt to draft movement in the Northeast is coming back after a century hiatus. It is a new food and drink epoch which runs alongside the vines to wine, coffee crop to cup and restaurants? farm to table. It is all good for the economic, physical and mental health of people who have the fortuity to make or afford it. A ?Terroir? or local flavor of the area will emerge from the crop?s soil and climate. So when you order a Philly beer, it will mean a beer that is entirely made in Philadelphia.

Already available are limited editions from artisanal breweries Sierra Nevada Estate Harvest Ales and Rogue Chatoe Series, who cultivated their own organic hops and malted barley using the local water and yeast to make geographical specific beers. And, Milwaukee?s Lakefront Brewery Local Acre Lager uses all ingredients from Wisconsin.

There will be GABF and World Beer Cup awards for dirt to draft breweries. Likewise, AHA medals will also be awarded. Esoteric beer writers will taste and try to describe these local flavors. I?m sure the area?s brewers and clubs are up for this challenge. The taste will result in the all-around brewer?s skill married to the local flavors of the flora/fauna. It will be interesting.

The U.S. craft beer movement?s selling point is to buy and drink locally made beers. Local brewers became successful and started exporting their beer. Brewers mixed beer ingredients from all over, because the beer flavor was indigenous to the United States. Just like Philadelphia?s professional ball teams, not all players are from the City of Brotherly Love. Would it be more interesting if they were? Who knows; it was planned to be that way when they started.

Quixotic homebrew dirt farmers can achieve this with the smaller batch size. A dirt farmer homebrewer does everything (the farming, harvesting, malting, brewing, fermenting, and serving work). I?m sure the gallant ones will invent a way to do this off the grid. Where the most unique characteristics of beer originate will surprise many (Palm Civet Coffee). The feasibility for terroir around here follows:

Hops ? Most homebrewers are already growing and using their own hops. Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell wrote about being a hop picker in Kent, England in 1931 saying, ?It would almost be ideal if one could earn a living at it.?

Indeed, Mr. Orwell.

Hops grow quite well around here if one provides them plenty of light, water and drainage. I grow mine in window planters and they act as green solar curtains for my store, Princeton Homebrew. If you own land and use the Christmas tree property tax avoidance loopholes, why not let some brewer/farmer grow some hops and barley on that land?

Craft beers have already elevated the status and price. Hops really take a long time to hand pick. Small scale machinery is available. Another proposal is to build a central processing place or utilize the old fashioned way and let people pick each cone when it is perfectly ripe, like they once did with hops and coffee beans and still do so with grapes.

Barley ? a versatile cereal grain which also grows well around here. It can be linked to the green roof industry with barley grass and the health food market. Barley?s fiber and nutrients are peerless. As far as malting the barley, I?ve done it, and kilned/cured the malt with solar power?it is straightforward. Germinating grains smells like concentrated cucumbers, so air it out!

Open fermenting with airborne yeast and bacteria is all natural. Are you ready for probiotic beer? The irony is homebrewing beginners are taught to ensure that all is clean and sanitized and therefore, no wild yeast and bacteria will influence your beer. It is the true thought that the genuine local character of beer can only be authentic by letting the microorganisms indigenous to the area influence the beer. Pajottenland, an area around Brussels, famous for its lambics, are openly fermented in these vats called ?cool ships!? Mr. Al Buck of East Coast Yeast would be purely interested in the flavors derived from locally openly fermented beers. Remember, it takes a while for them to mature.

Water - It can be spring water, rain water, well water or tap water. It all gets boiled for at least an hour, so by the decree of Louis Pasteur, the wort will be free of microbes. The water around here is medium-hard and somewhat like the water composition in Munich, Germany.

The real wild colonial barley and hop Brewers/Brewesses were dirt to draft. Almost 80% of the brewing was done by Brewesses until the 1800s. Most towns had a community Brewess for every 400 in population and the locals loved to pay for the brew and socialize while at the Brewess? home. (A broom handle above the door meant the homebrew was available.) After the 1800s, drinkers paid and drank at male owned saloons. Prohibition, the arrival of hop picking mechanization and the farmers moving out west for cheaper land and better climate changed brewing in favor of the commercial brewer.

The craft beer microeconomic engine has created jobs, bars, magazines, and beer tourists. Communities now meet in local brewpubs and bars drinking craft beer. How bad can it be if sustainable growing and preparing ?craftier? beer from scratch is involved? The taste is the harvest and finesse of the farmer/brewer. Looking at what terroir has done for coffee and wine trade, I believe it is possible to create terroir models for beer.

When I opened my homwbrew store in Princeton in 1995, I predicted that any town that is a town will have a brewery. Now, that is an understatement and I?d like to revise this as ?any community that is a community will again have a local brewer/brewess.? There is plenty of room to grow. This future has already been seeded by homebrew stores and clubs in the area.

So, right on Mr. Orwell, it certainly would be ideal if we all can make a living out of it!

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Source: http://www.phillybeerscene.com/2012/08/right-on-mr-orwell/

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