Wild ales are scarce and beautiful creatures, rarely imagined let alone seen. Few dare to brew them. Most brewers fear them. Even in Belgium, where spontaneous fermentation defines the great lambic beers of the Senne Valley, the process is only attempted seasonally when the right combination of microbes float in the vicinity. Under most circumstances, spontaneous fermentation is a destroyer of beer—something to avoid, not attempt.

Let’s be clear on what a wild ale is—and isn’t—as the nomenclature is often misapplied. Wild ales are beers into which no cultivated yeast strains are used. This contrasts dramatically with modern brewing, which has spent centuries learning to isolate and purify yeast strains and sanitize against contaminants. In wild ales, the wort (unfermented beer) is simply exposed to the open air and allowed to ferment spontaneously, courtesy of any ambient yeast or bacteria that wanders by.

Beers brewed with laboratory-cultivated Belgian-derived yeast or bacteria such as Brettanomyces or Lactobacillus share similar characteristics, but aren’t properly “wild.” Neither are beers aged in barrels inoculated with these or similar strains. Call them sour ales, Brett beers, or lambic-style—they’re causing enough stir to merit new categories in brewing competitions. But like animals in the controlled environs of a zoo, they’re not truly wild.

The trouble with attempting a wild ale is that the brewer is at the complete mercy of nature. Select your grains and choose whatever hops you care to, but with a wild ale, nature picks the yeast. And she’s known to be a bit fickle. There are thousands of yeast and bacteria species out there, the vast majority of which have no business in a beer. Opening up unfermented wort to the randomness of nature’s yeast portfolio is like spinning a roulette wheel in which the odds are disastrously against you. You’re either a fool for trying—or maybe you’re Phil Goularte.

The first portion of Amarillo hops he dropped in was already more than he’d usually use. He looked at perhaps 10-fold more in the remaining bags. Then he looked at the Americans. “How much?” he asked.

They didn’t hesitate, replying in unison: “All of it.”

If Roy didn’t already understand that these five American brewers who visited Belgium in March were different, he must have at that moment.

Brewers of New American Beers have been heading to the east side of the Atlantic for more than two decades to taste traditionally brewed beers and learn how they are made. Call it the inspired visiting the inspiration. Seldom, however, do they arrive with a large supply of their own beer and hand out samples to both brewers and consumers. Seldom do they end up with their photos accompanying stories on the front page of local newspapers, nor do they attract television crews who want to do interviews.

Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione came up with the idea for the trip as part of “research” for his next book, Extreme Brewing (due from Rockport Publishers in the fall). It wasn’t hard to talk Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing, Adam Avery of Avery Brewing and Rob Todd of Allagash Brewing into joining him on the trip.

“We look forward to sharing our beers with them,” Calagione said before going. “We’re not saying our stuff is better than yours or anything like that. We want to recognize they are the Mecca.”

Delivering the keynote speech at the Craft Brewers Conference in Seattle several weeks after returning, Calagione made another point, “We knew we weren’t just representing the five breweries present but everyone in this room as we turned more and more people on to the amazing beers being made all across this country.”

Earlier in the same speech, Calagione drew an analogy between the revolution in American beer than began in earnest in the 1980s and changes in music—taking his electric guitar and electric backing band onto a folk stage—that Bob Dylan sparked in the 1960s.

Face it. The high-end beer segment is where the action is. We’re not only talking about the fact that American craft beers sales were up 7% in 2004 and growing at a similar rate the first half of 2005, but also about imports with similar cachet. The discussion needn’t be limited to beers that cost (yikes!) $1 per ounce or more in restaurants, but may include less expensive 6-packs sold in national park campground stores and even 750ml bottles in neighborhood gas stations.

These beers stayed out of the fray as America’s largest brewers engaged in summer price wars, reminding us they are different and giving us reason to ask a few questions. How much should I pay for a beer? Why do some beers cost more? How could higher prices possibly be good?

Stephen Beaumont — a veteran beer writer and partner in Toronto’s beerbistro, a beer-friendly restaurant — has long advocated higher prices, occasionally ruffling beer consumers’ feathers. He explained why via e-mail:

“To the American consumer in particular, price tends to equal quality. Charging higher prices for beer is a) a means of garnering respect from the average consumer; b) a path out of the cheap six-pack ghetto of mainstream beers and a point of differentiation; and c) a way to reflect the quality of ingredients, rarity and amount of knowledge, effort and risk that goes into the creation of some beers.

“The industry should take its lead from the wine business. All wines are made from crushed grapes, yet there are massive gaps in wine pricing. Ignoring those wines from long-passed vintages, the justifications for the difference in cost are quality of the goods, expense of the vineyards (lower yields, hand-pruning and harvesting, difficulties in irrigation, climatic challenges, etc.) and rarity of the wine on offer. All of those traits are echoed in the production of some high-end beers.”