Sage Advice
Craftsman Brewing in California has won awards for its Triple White Sage ale. Mark Jilg, who founded Craftsman in 1995, says his goal in using sage was to build a unique beer around a locally-sourced ingredient from the nearby foothills and show that a beer could be interesting without having to be extreme.
We try to be subtle and refined in the things we do,” Jilg says. “When you add a new ingredient it complicates things. When it comes to our Triple White Sage, some people have a hard time finding the flavor, while it jumps right out for some other people.”
We use sage as a sort of late addition hop. It shows up big in the aroma and some in the flavor,” Jilg says. He says the beer is part of Craftsman Brewing’s response to what he perceives as a “real problem” in the craft beer community between “consumption and appreciation.”
Conceptually, craft beer is perceived as high quality. But there is quite a bit of effort put into being the most talked-about beer by making extreme beers,” Jilg says. “There is an underlying aesthetic to craft beer that is getting lost. We are driven by younger legal drinkers as an industry, and it is hard to pitch subtlety and refinement when much of this audience wants the biggest and strongest. We end up racing to being the biggest and most extreme.”
Mitch Steele, head brewer at Stone Brewing in California, says the brewery’s use of garden ingredients got its start before he joined the company. Much of the experimentation took place with Stone’s cask-aging program.
Stone Smoked Porter with Chipotle emerged from one of these tests. The peppers are added in the secondary and are steeped for three days in a bag. The result is a twist on Stone Smoked Porter that has a trailing heat that does not dominate the flavor.
Steele’s advice to those considering brewing a garden beer? “Go light,” he urges. “Every time we’ve done something new we have overdone it the first time. It takes time to dial in just the right flavor.”
With brewers spending more time in the garden and the growing season fast upon us, there is a good chance that your next beer might just have a spicy note.
