Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/402796
8 4 V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T | N o v - D e c 2 014 w w w. v w m m e d i a . c o m "Matching certain beers with cer- tain wine barrels, the amount of Brett to add and how it's going to work on a given amount of sugar, or how much bacteria to pitch and how long it needs to do its work." Cilurzo was awarded the Brew- ers Association's prestigious Rus- sell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Craft Brewing in 2008. And as the craft beer industry continues its exponential growth – currently the segment accounts for about 10% of the total domestic beer market – barrel-aged and sour beers are still a particularly hot area for experi- mentation and innovation. And, like Cilurzo, many brewers are looking to the wine world for inspiration and materials. WORKING WITH WINERIES Delaware-based Dogfish Head Brewing, for example, released a well-received beer called Noble Rot, made with must from viog- the barrels from a handful of local wineries and prefers that they've been used at least three times. "We're not trying to get too much oak out of the barrels, so we like them to have been used quite a bit," Cilurzo noted. "Aside from get- ting some of the wine flavor extract- ed into the beer, we're using the wood within the barrels to harbor the microorganisms so we can carry them through from batch to batch." Russian River Brewing turns each barrel about three times, mix- ing the beer among older and newer barrels. It might take as many as 60 individual barrels to blend together into a single 100-barrel batch. There are now entire books devoted to the subject of making sour beers, but there were scant resources available when Cilurzo started experimenting with wine barrels and bugs, as he calls them. "That forced us to establish our own system – what we call the Russian River way," he said. nier grapes infected with Botrytis, as well as an addition of pinot gris juice, both sourced from Alexandria Nicole Cellars in Prosser, Wash. Great Divide Brewing Co. in Denver incorporated the juice from viog- nier grapes sourced from a North- ern California winery in its 20th Anniversary Ale, which, according to brewer Ethan Osborne, "added a vinous character with a touch of sweetness." "A lot of stuff that we consider junk and throw on the compost heap are things that the brewers get all gaga about," said Sean O'Keefe, vice president of Michigan's Cha- teau Grand Traverse winery. O'Keefe worked with brewers at Goose Island Brewing Co. on a col- laborative project with Deschutes Brewery in Oregon called Class of '88, named for the year the brew- eries were both founded. Chateau Grand Traverse pressed riesling juice specifically for the brewery, let it settle and then froze it at a EVQ_beer analysis 2 tr.indd 1 02/09/14 12:09 SERVING THE WINE INDUSTRY FOR 30 YEARS!