By: Robin Dohrn-Simpson
Is it a beer? Is it a wine? Is wine that has been steeped with hops considered wine? Is wort blended with lactic-bacteria-fermented Pinot Gris and fermented with Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces still considered beer? Don’t most winemakers do everything possible to avoid Brettanomyces? Maybe not anymore. The new sensation in town is cross collaborations between vintners and brewmasters. They’re experimenting with dry-hopping wines, wet-hopping wines or fermenting beers on a variety of grapes.
Winemakers and brewers, as well as their customers, enjoy these collaborations. Christine Park of Murphy Goode Winery in Sonoma said, “It’s an adventure. A wine with lager tasting notes and vice versa definitely caught the attention of wine and beer fans. It’s a cool concept, and our consumers embraced it favorably.”
Charlie and Echo Winery
Charlie and Echo Winery rests in San Diego’s Miralani Makers’ District. The makers in this district produce beer, wine, cider, mead, sake and spirits. Once every month they host a walkabout where people meander from business to business tasting the different themed drinks of the particular month.
Charlie and Echo owner and Winemaker, Eric Van Drunen, initially collaborated with Bill Lindsay and Jonathan Barbarin of Thunderhawk Alements, an independent brewery in the district, on “Project X.” The three successfully created a Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio blend with Hallertau Blanc hops named after Van Drunen’s favorite song lyrics. Sister Golden Hair Surprise, or S.G.H.S, reflects the color and sensory experience of the wine. The second wine he created is called Citrasé, a rosé blend of Grenache and Mataro with Citra hops. The name is a mashup of Citra and Rosé.
With unique, on-trend wines comes unique, on-trend packaging. “We’ve put these wines in cans which seems apropos since they are the intersection of wine and beer,” Van Drunen said.
For their part, Thunderhawk Alements is quite proud of the product and hopes to do more collaborations. “We not only learned how hops can complement wine in a beautiful way; we are excited to see these unique wines become available to the public. We look forward to more collaboration,” Barbarin, co-owner of Thunderhawk Alements said.
Hops, Van Drunen said, affect the wine in unexpected ways. “Hops help the wine retain the head that one generally sees on a beer. It changes the color of the wine, changes the aroma and has a very transformative mouth feel,” he said.
To ensure he has the freshest product, Van Drunen makes a batch of wine every two weeks, since the hop content drops around six months. He’s experimented quite a bit to get to this point. “It has been a long journey creating these wines. I’ve tried a few wines getting to this final product. I tried a sparkling sour red, which was originally a good wine that went bad in the bottle. I’ve tried to dry-hop a red wine, but it wasn’t as tasty as the Sauvignon Blanc,” Van Drunen said.
Boedecker Cellars & Little Beast Brewing
Stewart Boedecker of Boedecker Cellars in Portland, Oregon, collaborated with Charles Porter, Founder and Brewmaster at Portland’s Little Beast Brewing, in creating two mixed-culture beers fermented with wine grapes: Bière Gris and Radical Forces Pinot Noir beer.
“We turned the art of wine and beer making on its head a bit, and the result is quite beautiful. Stewart came up with the idea of a lactic-bacteria-fermented Pinot Gris juice that we then blended with our wort and fermented, as usual, with Saccharomyces and a secondary with Brettanomyces. This aged in oak for six months,” said Porter. “For this Bière Gris, Boedecker Cellars pressed their Pinot Gris grapes and put it in a tote. Once the tote arrived at our brewery, we added our Lactobacillus to sour the juice. This process is heralded in the making of tart and sour beers but typically avoided in winemaking. Once soured, we added it to a beer we made that day and co-fermented it all together.
“The Radical Forces Pinot Noir beer was my creation. I wanted to mimic the character of a Pinot Noir but also balance that with a big beer. Nice Pinot Noir attributes, toasted oak barrel character, and a big, bold body from the beer and alcohol. For Radical Forces was we employed a whole cluster fermentation with a pilsner malt base,” Porter said. “The recipe was based on many years’ experience of mixed culture brewing that I practice. The experimental part was taking Stewart’s concept and blending it with our process. The collaboration was very fun and a new twist on what we do. I love working with other producers and learn something new every time.”
The unique brews have been quite a draw for patrons. “Customers have been very intrigued by these beers. They love the balance in them and notice that neither the beer nor wine qualities overshadow one another,” Porter said.
As Porter continues to produce Radical Forces and perfect his techniques, look for more collaborations in the future.
Murphy-Goode Winery
Murphy-Goode Winery has been crafting wine in the Alexander Valley of California since 1985. Second-generation winemaker Dave Ready Jr. said one of their central tenets is the belief in great wines and good times with family and friends. He’s kept this in mind as he followed his father’s example of creating well-crafted wines, most recently Bordeaux varieties and Zinfandels from Alexander Valley.
In 2016, Ready Jr. collaborated with Aron Levin, Brewmaster at St. Florian’s Brewery in Windsor, California, to craft a dry-hopped Sauvignon Blanc, and to brew a lager aged in Sauvignon Blanc barrels.
“Hops bines and grapevines have coexisted in Sonoma County since the 1850s. It seems winemakers have always been big fans of beer, and vice versa. In the Murphy-Goode spirit of celebrating the ‘Goode Life,’ we thought it would be unique to combine those two areas of craftsmanship,” said Ready Jr. “Joining forces with someone as passionate as Aron Levin, bringing that idea to life for our fans to enjoy, has been a blast. The melding of hops and grape flavors provides balance and added dimensions to our 2016 Dry-Hopped Sauvignon Blanc. We feel it appeals to both wine and beer drinkers alike, and that was our goal.”
Ready Jr. isn’t currently collaborating on any new hopped up wines, but he’s certainly not closing the door to it either. “We don’t have any plans like this in the future, but we are always open to possibilities and looking forward to innovation. We’re always open to new opportunities and collaborations. Our goal from the start was to create beverages that would appeal to both beer and wine fans, and I think we’ve done just that,” he said.
