Several months ago, there was an obscure posting in the Brewers Forum from Charlie Papazian. He was passing on a request he’d received for a brewer to speak about sustainable brewing issue at a conference taking place in San Francisco. Since I’ve written about organic beer and green breweries several times now, it piqued my interest. The conference was EcoCity World Summit, and it took place April 21-26 at various location in the Bay Area. I wrote to them to get press credentials on the off chance that a brewer did participate, and also because I was curious to see what else might come up related to the recent agricultural shortages with barley and hops. It turned out that Greg Koch, from Stone Brewing, had agreed to be on one of the panels, on Saturday April 26. His panel was titled “The Future of Food For Cities.”

After a gala opening at the Herbst Theatre and two days of academic seminars at Berkeley’s Extension Center at Third and Mission, the remaining three days of the conference all took place at the Nob Hill Masonic Center on California Street. A number of the panel discussions focused on the future of various infrastructures, and had titles that all began “The Future of …,” with future glimpses of transportation in cities, energy to power cities, consumption, population, equity, architecture and urban design.

Below this interesting mural were a couple dozen tables with local organizations, media and other related ecological agendas with fliers, magazines and books. There was quite a lot of interesting stuff to see and read.

The first speaker on “The Future of Food For Cities” was particularly interesting. Eric Holt-Giménez, Director of Food First, which is also known as the Institute for Food and Development Policy, gave a lot of information about the myths surrounding the current food shortage. The most important of these is that he doesn’t believe it’s a shortage at all. He pointed out that the many food riots taking place around the world are not even riots, but rebellions. They aren’t being staged by starving populations, but by the poor angry about how quickly food prices have risen, about a growing entitlement gap and lack of democracy. Worldwide, average food prices have gone up a staggering 83% over the last three years, and 45% in just the last nine months. We all know about barley and hops, but wheat is up 130% and rice 66%.

At the same time, the big food companies are reporting record profits: ADM 25%, Monsanto 45%, General Foods 61% and Cargill 86%. But Holt-Giménez claims there is no shortage whatsoever, that reserve stocks are fine. To account for the higher prices he goes to say that across the board the rising prices are and will continue to blamed on the following:

1. Climate change: droughts, floods, etc.
2. Consumption: greater demand
3. Yields: 2005-06 were down, but not 2007
4. Energy: higher oil prices
5. Agrofuels: half of corn being used toward, demand rising

I’m not quite sure what to make of that. As he was ticking them off, I noticed they were pretty much the exact reasons that we’ve been told barley prices are rising and are some of the reasons for hops, too. With hops, having fewer acres planted — especially of aroma hops — is undoubtedly the primary cause and yields are still down as a result. But it’s hard not to wonder if some of the rising costs are due to some chicanery on the part of what Holt-Giménez refers to as the Industrial Agri-foods Complex.

He gave a lengthy explanation of the root causes, but the ones that seemed the most problematic to me were these. The so-called Green Revolution of the 1960-80s concentrated ownership of the world’s land into just a few very large corporations. As a consequence, we’ve lost 75% of food diversity to the point where cotton, maize, wheat, rice and soy account for 91% of all crops grown. That makes for a vulnerable food system where a problem with just one crop could have a ripple effect across the entire economy. Some of the other things he cited included the removal of transit barriers, dismantling marketing boards, free-trade agreements and food subsidies to the tune of $1 billion per day.

What Holt-Giménez sees happening is a collapse of the food and fuel systems into one, except that the biofuel solution is no solution at all. He calls it the “Grand Mythology,” that we “can’t consume our way out of over-consumption.” There a couple of essays at Food First that go into a bit more detail about this, if you’re interested. I’d suggest The New Green Revolution and World Food Prices, The Great Agrofuel Swindle, and Pouring Fuel on the Food.

Greg Koch went last, telling a receptive audience a story familiar to all of us, but which was largely new to a good portion of the crowd. Koch talked about how “the U.S. is now the most exciting place for beer in the world, bar none.” He told the story of beer’s history, from the golden age to its recent renaissance.

He discussed the malt and hops shortages of late and the statistic about the average American living within 10 miles of a brewery. Koch also brought up his own brewery’s efforts to be green, then delving into a broader examination of what many others were doing as well, painting an honest picture of just how green the craft beer community is.

After each panelist spoke, the three of them, took lively questions from the audience. From left, Greg Koch, Carol Whiteside, President of the Great Valley Center in Modesto (and Modesto’s former mayor), and Eric Holt-Giménez, from Food First.

It was certainly an interesting experience and I was glad to see craft beer playing a role in thinking about the future of humanity and we should go about securing it.
 

A maddeningly sparse article in Denmark’s Copenhagen Post today reports that a thesis done by a graduate student at the University of Copenhagen seems to suggest that “[o]rganic beer production emits substantially more greenhouse gases than ordinary beer.” The study’s author, Jakob Majcher, compared CO² emissions between conventional brewing and organic brewing and found that organic beer production produced 12% more. As far as I knew, the only difference between organic and non-organic beer was the ingredients used. I don’t know of any real differences in the “process” of brewing organic beer, so I’m somewhat stumped as to what might account for his findings. There’s almost no details about how he he did his study, just his declaration of the results, which is more than a little frustrating.

There is what looks to be a slightly more thorough, or at least longer, article at Information DK. Unfortunately, it’s in Danish and none of the popular web translators offer Danish. The only one I could find, InterTran, provides a translation that is almost unreadable. Hopefully, this will get picked up by English-language news outlets and we can figure out what’s really going on.

Happy Earth Day everybody. This is the 39th annual celebration setting aside a day to reflect on the big blue marble that sustains us and makes every second of all our lives possible, including enjoying some wonderful beer, organic or otherwise. I did a feature earlier this year on Green Breweries called It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Green in All About Beer magazine. In addition to writing about organic beer, I packed as many stories of ways breweries are running their business in sustainable ways as would fit. But the reality is that in doing research for the article what I discovered is that the number of breweries and the numbers of ways that breweries voluntarily adopt green practices is, quite frankly, staggering. And as far as I can tell, most of them do so just because it’s the right thing to do. There are economic advantages for some sustainable decisions, but by and large they’re not necessarily the least expensive way to do things. I was really struck by this as so many places stepped up to tell me what they were doing, so many in fact that I couldn’t fit anywhere near what they told me in the article. So as Earth Day has me reflecting on this while enjoying a frosty beverage, I’m proud to be a part of one of the greenest industries around. It’s time to fire up the iPod and put on a favorite old song: The Most Beautiful World in the World, by Harry Nilsson. Please join me in drinking a toast to our Earth.

The Green Life, which is the official blog of the Sierra Club, did a long post on St. Patrick’s Day about the other real green beer, organic beer, along with a number of breweries whose sustainable practices they applauded. New Belgium was mentioned, of course, and so was Sierra Nevada, Great Lakes, Brooklyn and Orlio. There’s also a number of comments listing even more green breweries that people knew about. It’s interesting to note that people interested enough to read the Sierra Club’s daily blog were so aware of so many breweries whose operations were green.

Lucky number thirteen, the beginning of year two of the Sessions. This time around our host, Chris O’Brien, the Beer Activist, chose a topic near and dear to his heart, organic beer. It’s one I’m fairly familiar with as well. I wrote a feature story on green breweries for All About Beer magazine in January of this year that covered both organic beer and the green ways in which breweries operate. As I’ve been traveling a lot the last few weeks, my session post is a bit of a rehash, let’s call it recycled. That’s more green.

To me, one of the main issues about organic beer is its perception and what exactly makes a beer organic. Unsurprisingly, it’s the ingredients used to make whatever product is going to be called or labeled “organic.” Several years ago, the standards for organic products varied from state to state, but in 2002 the federal government instituted the National Organic Program (NOP) that standardized the requirements for organic labeling nationwide. This made it easier for companies to sell across state lines without having to worry about individual and possibly conflicting standards between states. Some states did complain, of course, because it undermined their own efforts at defining what it means to be an organic product. The standards in Oregon prior to the NOP, for example, were more rigid than the national standard adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But this intervention did make it easier for regional and national breweries to more easily meet the requirements for a larger market.

The USDA does not do the certification process directly, but rather they have “deputized” independent certifying agents, which in some cases do include the former state certifying agencies. Currently, there are about sixty such agencies. Among these are the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and the Oregon Tilth. In addition to the actual certifying, they also investigate noncompliance complaints and check records, monitor label usage, etc. There are now essentially four levels of organic labeling: “100% organic,” “organic,“ “made with organic materials,” and “some organic ingredients.” The differences in these four are listed in the table below:

While this is undoubtedly a good step, the fact that there are four of these and they sound so similar it seems to me this is still confusing for consumers, especially the casual consumer who is not likely to be familiar with the precise differences. The “made with organic ingredients” designation, for example — which only requires 70% of its ingredients to actually be organic — seems to convey a false impression of how organic the product really is, at least in my opinion. A company could use 30% of complete crap and still make a consumer believe their purchase is organically sound. This undermines the very idea of organic products. It seems to me products should either be organic or not. This slippery slope of degrees is bound to cause nothing but confusion and perhaps even ill will. The FDA has approved some sixty plus chemicals for use in the manufacture of beer. Are they all bad? Certainly not, and even craft brewers use some of them on occasion. But health and beer is all about perception. A brewery could theoreticaly use many of them and so long as it’s less than 30% of the total ingredients say their concoction is “made with organic ingredients.”

All beer is in effect natural, especially those that use only the four basic ingredients. This begs the question of how much better is organic beer vs. a typical craft beer? I’d say in the end it has to do with how it makes the customer feel on an emotional level. I think that’s true of almost all organic products. People buy them because it makes them feel good, like they’re doing something good, both for themselves, the environment and perhaps even society as a whole. They feel like they’re helping out small farmers. This is why the labeling is so important. And not just the organic designation but also the truthiness of the entire package. A customer should be able to feel good about what they’re buying, but if details are left out — no matter how legal it is to do so — then this damages the emotional response that is so central to buying organic.

This is the very reason big companies hide behind dba’s and buy up health food companies. Colgate recently bought Tom’s of Maine. Will that make Tom’s a bad product now? Probably not, unless Colgate takes over production and relaxes standards. But some people will likely still think twice about buying Tom’s knowing it’s just another product line in Colgate’s massive portfolio. It’s all a matter of what perception will be created in the mind of the consumer based on that new information and what the change of ownership means to them. Some may not care at all, of course. But what happens if this information is not disclosed on Tom’s packaging? At that point it goes beyond simple ignorance and becomes a calculated lie-by-omission.

There will almost certainly continue to be a market for organic and healthier products that maintain a small niche within the wider market. What will allow it to grow is directly proportional to the confidence that the market has for the products within the niche market. That’s the exact reason the labeling standards are so important. But doing the minimum required for purely business reasons in order to sell a product is just not enough. Common sense standards will also have to be adhered to as well in order to gain customer confidence. This will vary from company to company but makes sense in relation to the product. For example, an organic farmer who refrains from using pesticides but hires slave labor would not be adhering to a common sense standard, in my opinion.

By and large, I think the majority of organic beers available today do adhere to a good set of standards, both the mandated ones and the common sense ones. But as larger companies begin to compete for these niche markets, the line becomes blurred. Some will leave the smaller companies they’ve purchased alone and some will swallow them whole. New ones created within larger companies will suffer the same problems. And then who knows what will happen to common sense standards.

There’s a great series of charts on Michigan State’s website showing how many organic products of all stripes are currently owned by large corporations hedging their bets and trying to appear socially conscious.

Excerpted from my All About Beer article: The problem with the USDA’s definition is that every beer is 5% alcohol and roughly 95% water plus a fractional amount of flavor compounds (including vitamins, minerals and trace elements), dietary fiber, carbohydrates, hop oils and resins, and proteins. When brewing beer, for every 10 pounds of malt, only a few ounces of hops are used, almost regardless of style. This means that a beer could use organic barley and no organic hops and still technically fit the USDA’s organic definition, as long as the USDA has been satisfied that the particular type of hops used in the beer is “not commercially available in organic form.”

Until very recently, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ingredients that organic companies were claiming weren’t available organically and, therefore, a non-organic substitute could be used. But there’s a difference between allowable and acceptable, and consumers supporting organic products precisely because they were better for the environment began complaining that the distinction was being blurred. By allowing goods to be called “organic” that contained non-organic ingredients it was creating confusion as to exactly what was being offered for sale. This consumer backlash forced the USDA to change their policy and limit the number of items that could be substituted and still be called organic. After a public debate, the number of ingredients that could be substituted was fixed at 38, with hops still on the list.

So when it comes to organic beer, hops have become the crux of the debate. There was a time when the only available organic malts were pale and crystal malts, but today almost any common malt is available organically. Organic hops, on the other hand, remain more elusive. Hops are a fragile crop, susceptible to many pests, fungi and mildew problems. Today virtually all hops are grown in just three states: Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Pesticides and fertilizers have greatly enhanced yields, and hop growers have developed varieties with better yields and that are disease resistant. Many of these varieties have become an integral part of beer’s wide array of styles. Certain hop varieties have become associated with specific styles, making it all but impossible to use a substitute and get the desired results. You may be able to make a pilsner without Saaz hops or an American pale ale without Cascades, but they won’t taste quite right.

Of the roughly fifty common hop varieties, only about one-fifth have shown the potential to be viable organic crops. Stephen Carpenter, great-great-grandson of the Yakima Valley’s first hop grower, tried unsuccessfully to grow the very popular Cascade hops organically. For many years, organic hops were available primarily from New Zealand, with as much as 80% of all organic hops grown by a single farmer, the Oldham family, on 25 acres.

Last year, Anheuser-Busch entered the organic market with two brands, Wild Hop Lager and Stone Mill Pale Ale. During the public debate on labeling, they were strongly criticized for not using 100% organic hops by misguided consumer groups who believed that if you are big enough and have enough money then it should be easy enough for you to get whatever you want, including organic hops. But the hops business doesn’t work like that. Hop growers are just beginning to come out of a decade-long down cycle that has seen many leave the business just as demand for hops is on the rise. By every account, there is a worldwide hop shortage that has no easy solutions. Unfortunately, A-B bowed to public pressure and announced their organic beers would be made with 100% organic hops. Even they’re unsure where a steady supply of hops is likely to come from. Thanks to A-B’s having been forced into this decision by consumer groups, small craft brewers who make organic beer may very well have a much tougher time finding organic hops and even staying in business because what hops may be available will be at least twice as expensive as conventionally grown varieties. According to Morgan Wolaver, founder of Wolaver’s Organic Ales, this is perhaps organic beer’s biggest challenge. “We need to find an answer to these crop issues, because the controversy will not simply go away. If a beer is made with 100% of the more expensive organic hops, will consumers be willing to spend another dollar per six-pack?”

So that’s my recycled three cents on organic beer, most of it written before today but in one place for the first time, so that should count for something.

 
Below is a list of many of the organic beers and beer producers available today.

Domestic Organic Breweries

• Bison Brewing; Berkeley, California
• Blackfoot River Brewing; Helena, Montana
• Butte Creek Brewing; Chico, California
• Eel River Brewing; Fortuna, California
• Elliott Bay Brewing; Seattle, Washington
• Fish Brewing; Olympia, Washington
• Laurelwood Brewing; Portland, Oregon
• North Coast Brewing; Fort Bragg, California
• Peak Organic Brewing; Burlington, Massachusetts
• Pisgah Brewing; Black Mountain, North Carolina
• Roots Organic Brewery; Portland, Oregon
• Wolaver’s Certified Organic Ales; Middlebury, Vermont
• Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing; Santa Cruz, California
• Ukiah Brewing; Ukiah, California

Domestic Organic Beers

• Big “O” Organic, Snake River Brewing; Jackson Hole, Wyoming
• Biologique Dupont Beers (5), Brasserie Dupont; Tourpes, Belgium
• Kaya Organic Pale, Fitger’s Brewhouse; Duluth, Minnesota
• Kraftbräu Summer Moon Organic Ale, Kraftbräu Brewery; Kalamazoo, Michigan
• Mothership Wit, New Belgium Brewing; Fort Collins, Colorado
• OGA (Organic Golden Ale), Lucky Labrador; Portland, Oregon
• Organic Amber, Bluegrass Brewing; Louisville, Kentucky
• Organic Bock, Big Horse Brewpub; Hood River, Oregon
• Organic ESB, Lakefront Brewery; Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Organic Porter, Brooklyn Brewery; Brooklyn, New York
• Tree Hugger Organic IPA, Redfish New Orleans Brewhouse; Boulder, Colorado

Organic Breweries Abroad

• Arkell’s; Swindon, England
• Black Isle Brewery; Munlochy, Scotland
• Brauerei Pinkus Mueller; Munster, Germany
• Crannog Ales; Sorrento, BC, Canada
• Clarke’s Organic Brewery; Dewsbury, England
• Founders Organic Brewery; Nelson New Zealand
• Marble Beers; Manchester, England
• Mongozo Exotic Beers; Venray, Netherlands
• O’Hanlon’s Brewing; Devon, England
• Pacific Western Brewing; Burnaby, BC, Canada
• Pitfields Organic Brewery; London, England
• The 4 Elements; Richelbach, Germany
• Thisted Bryghus; Thisted, Denmark
• Waedenswiler Bierwelt; Wädenswil, Switzerland
• Wild Rose Brewery; Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Organic Beers Abroad

• Border Gold & Angel Lager, Broughtan Ales; Broughtan, Scotland
• Brakspear Organic Beer, Brakspear Brewery, Witney, England
• Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic-Bio, Brasserie Cantillon, Brussels, Belgium
• Duchy Originals Organic, Wychwood Brewery; Witney, England
• Eisenbahn Natural, Eisenbahn; Brazil
• Emerson’s Organic Pilsner, Emerson’s Brewery; Dunedin, New Zealand
• Golden Promise Organic, Caldonian Brewery; Edinburgh, Scotland
• Mill Street Original Organic Lager, Mill Street Brewery; Toronto, Canada
• Organic Ale, Brasserie Rancho El Paso; Hokkaido, Japan
• Organic Ale & Best Bitter, St. Peter’s Brewery; Suffolk, England
• Organic Beer Shinshu Sansan, Yo-Ho Brewing; Japan
• Organic Honeydew, Fuller’s; London, England
• Samuel Smith Organic Ale & Lager, Old Brewery at Tadcaster; Yorkshire, England
• Yella Bella Organic Ale, Batemans Brewery; Wainfleet, England

Purity Brewery, a newer British microbrewery in Warwickshire, England, became the first brewery in the UK to earn a Red Tractor Assurance Mark for one of its beers, Farmer’s Harvest.

From their website: This is the first alcoholic beverage to carry the Red Tractor assurance mark which makes it unique! The mark symbolises that the ale has been produced in the UK using British grown malt and hops that meets the high standards expected and examined through independent inspections by the Assured Food Standards agency. Paul Halsey, director at Purity, comments: “We’re really excited to be the first brewery to display the Red Tractor stamp. This reflects our commitment to use only British farmed produce in all of our ales. Including the Red Tractor symbol on our beer will work to reassure consumers and demonstrate our support for British farming.” Colin Smith, chairman of Assured Food Standards, said: “We are delighted to award Purity with the first ever Red Tractor assurance mark for a brewery. This is the latest exciting development as an ever increasing number of businesses join Red Tractor. We hope other breweries will follow Purity’s lead and commit to sourcing farm assured British ingredients.” The beer was brewed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the National Farmers’ Union in the UK.

In a sense, the Red Tractor mark is similar to labeling something organic, except that the goal is to promote local ingredients in a variety of goods, with a standard of quality, too. It is administered by Assured Food Standards (or AFS), which is a trade group “owned by the entire food industry. It represents interests from each of the key links in the food chain, including the National Farmer’s Union, the Ulster Farmers Union, the Meat & Livestock Commission, Dairy UK and the British Retail Consortium. Observers include DEFRA and the Food and Drink Federation.” Their stated objective:

AFS believes that the Red Tractor has a major role to play in the future of British food and farming — by promoting recognition of professionally-produced assured food, and by boosting the reputation of food production in the UK. We do this by first establishing the benchmark for production and then ensuring that producers, processors and other operators continually meet those standards by carrying out regular and robust audits.

Purity Brewing was founded in 2005 and makes two beers in addition to Farmer’s Harvest, Pure UBU (an amber that’s 4.5% abv) and Pure Gold (a 3.8% abv golden ale). The Pure UBU was chosen last year as one of the world’s top fifty beers at the International Beer Challenge, an international competition headquartered in the UK. The Supreme Champion that same year was none other than Deschutes’ The Abyss. Based solely on their website, they appear to be a well-funded craft brewer, but with the accolades one dares to hope they care about the beer, too. I’m certainly looking forward to giving them a try on my next visit across the pond.

Golden West Brewing, who is the parent company of Chico-based Butte Creek Brewing, issued a press release today that they have created a new division within the company, dubbed Blue Marble Brewing. This new division will be launching a new organic brand beginning next month with the release of Blue Marble Organic Pilsner. According to the press release, they “are in negotiations with a key nationwide retailer to create a nationwide platform for the selling and marketing of this exciting new brand.” PR-speak aside, presumably that would be a chain like Whole Foods, to hazard a guess.

Jennifer Talley, the head brewer at Squatter’s Pub Brewery, which is operated by Salt Lake Brewing, has brewed the state’s first certified organic beer, an amber ale. Squatter’s is already known for their ecological leanings, having been named a Utah recycler of the year in 2004. So creating an organic beer does seem like the next logical step for them to make. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Talley used “organic pale and caramel malted barley and aromatic hops,” using “barley is grown from organic seeds, using natural methods of pest control such as lady bugs and composting rather than chemical fertilizers.”

The taste, says brewmaster Jenny Talley, is a caramel-like maltiness with a hint of sweetness. Organic certification requires high levels of cleanliness and sanitation that already were in place, said Talley. But it also requires strict segregation of ingredients “from grain to glass.”

In addition to the Squatters Pub in downtown Salt Lake City, the new organic amber ale is also available at Park City and at the Salt Lake City International Airport. It will also begin appearing on grocery store shelves throughout Utah beginning this summer.

I’ve very much enjoyed Talley’s other beers and am glad to see yet another organic beer from a well-established brewery.

Jenny Talley, brewmaster at Squatters, shows off her Squatters Organic Amber Ale, the Utah’s only certified organic beer.
(Photo by Paul Fraughton, The Salt Lake Tribune)

NOTE: For some reason, the Squatters website requires a username and password, meaning no one can actually visit their website, or it give the following error message, “Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service,” with the same result. Hopefully, this is a temporary error and will be fixed shortly.

For eight years, Eric Rose was the head brewer at Santa Barbara Brewing. And life was good. But Eric, like many brewers, dreamed of opening his own place one day. That day was Sunday, when his Hollister Brewing opened its doors to the public for the first time.

Situated in a modern strip mall setting in Goleta, a high-tech suburb of Santa Barbara, the new building, brewery and restaurant was built from scratch. I was in Santa Barbara over St. Patrick’s Day weekend (the missus had business that took her there for a long weekend) and hooked up with Eric for my regular column in Ale Street News, the Left Coaster. I’ve always liked Eric’s beers and feel like he often doesn’t get the recognition he deserves, despite winning awards for his Belgian-style beers and hoppy west coast IPAs. Rose is installing a brand-new 10bbl system and will offer twelve of his own beers — all of them organic — in a wide range of styles along with eight guests taps featuring his friends’ beers. After he’s up and running, he also expects to start doing some barrel-aged beers in small quantities.

Also from my Ale Street News column:

His new brewpub, named Hollister Brewing Co. for the street in the Santa Barbara suburb of Goleta where it’s located, will be something of a Gastropub among chain restaurants. They’ll serve reasonably priced upscale food made for all-local ingredients prepared by the former chef from Bouchon, one of the most well-respected local restaurants. The menu will feature eclectic brew food with homemade sauces, specialty pizza and six daily lunch specials to cater to the high-tech industry nearby.

As Rose tells me, “there used to be a time when you had to choose between being green and good taste.” But now that you can have both, he believes more people will make the responsible choice that gives them both great taste and the feeling that they’re doing the right thing, too. Organic beers have truly come of age. So far in the first few days he’s getting some good reviews from locals and the local paper, the Santa Barbara Independent has written favorably about the opening. I’m really looking forward to tasting what Eric will be brewing at his new venture. If you visit Santa Barbara, be sure to stop by his new place and give it a try.

From the Independent article:

Located at the northeast corner of the Camino Real Marketplace in Goleta, the new brewery is replacing Camino Real Café. The three looked at a number of different locations, but decided on the Camino Real Marketplace because of the activity surrounding the area. “It’s a very important part of the Goleta Valley,” Rose said. With traffic being generated by a movie theater, Home Depot, Starbucks, and Borders, the trio envisions the brewery as another option for older college students and researchers to enjoy a nicer beer, as there is nothing of the sort in Goleta. The brewery has “enough TVs to make sports fans happy,” but is low-key enough that it isn’t a sports bar, Rose said.

Hollister Brewer Eric Rose in March.

Oregon Brew Crew member Jamie Dull, whose homebrew, Ember Ale, was made using roasted grain that was smoked on his barbecue. It was then brewed commercially as a Collaborator beer with Widmer Bros. Brewing. Fox Channel 12, KPTV Portland, did a nice three-minute segment on his Collaborator Ember Ale. You can watch it on YouTube.

Jon Cadoux, founder of Portland, Maine’s Peak Organic Brewing announced the addition of 12-packs and kegs. Twelve-packs will be released for their Pale Ale as well as a variety pack containing four bottles of each of their three current styles: pale ale, amber ale and a nut brown ale.

From the press release: “Peak Organic customers enjoy celebrating the great moments of life with family and friends,” said Cadoux, whose Peak Organic web site is filled with customer photos and stories. “We are responding to increased demand by offering 12-packs and draft. Peak on draft is especially popular in restaurants that are very focused on high quality ingredients.” One of America’s very first organic beers, Peak Organic is made with the highest quality ingredients and is characterized by a distinctively refreshing taste. Peak is available in three flavors: Pale Ale, complex and hoppy; Nut Brown Ale, smooth with a nutty finish; and Amber Ale, lively with a subtle toasted character.

Bottled in Portland, Maine, Peak Organic is made with barley and hops that are grown without toxic and persistent pesticides and chemical fertilizers. “This process makes our beer better tasting and more enjoyable, both for consumers and for the planet,” said Cadoux.

Organic beer is well positioned for growth. Organics has become a $13 billion industry and represents the fastest growing segment of America’s food and beverage category.

Jon Cadoux, founder of Peak Organic Brewing in Portland, Maine, from an AP story on MSNBC in July.
(Photo by Pat Wellenbach / AP)

There was as interesting overview of the obstacles of buying, selling and making organic beer in the Star-Telegram last week. The article had a special emphasis on its market in Texas, but also had a decent amount of general information.