#local lager

Locally Grown

I find myself more and more interested in ingredients than in beer itself. Making an IPA with the freshest Yakima Valley hops and premium German malts is easy if you have the money. Making good beer with ingredients grown in Maryland? That’s going to take a little more creativity. But the result is a more -- I hate to say it -- authentic product. Arguing about authenticity is not cool. I hear you. No one likes the guy who loudly proclaims the popular brewery as a sellout. But if the goal of craft brewing is to make local beer, you have to start with local ingredients. 

In Oregon, we are spoiled for local ingredients, and always have been. Between the Yakima and Willamette Valleys, the Northwest grows the vast majority of American hops. Grain has been malted right across the river in Vancouver, Washington for nearly a hundred years. It’s hard not to brew beer in Portland. But other parts of the country, especially in the South, no one made beer for a long time, so no one grew the ingredients.

We all know George Washington and his ilk made beer and cider and mead up and down the eastern seaboard back in the day. Books have been written on the subject of brewing in the colonies. But it’s a hundred of years since New York’s hop fields were taken out by downy mildew and the Midwest became the bread basket for the rest of the country. Finding a local source for brewing supplies is hard. 

That’s what makes places like Milkhouse Brewery in Maryland so interesting. They try there damnedest to make beer locally. That means with hops grown on their own farm and grain malted just down the road.

The beer is conservative, leaning toward more approachable, more sessionable styles. Take Local Lager, it’s 3.9% and even your grandpa would recognize it as beer. It tastes like macro beer, malty and sort of corny. But there’s a subtle fruitiness that cuts through, white grapes and nectarines. It’s easy to drink, but has a certain depth you wouldn’t find in a Yuengling.

The most adventurous beer on offer at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival was probably the golden Biere de Garde. It smells of strawberries and has a hint sort of tart finish. It’s not sour, but it has a sharp something on the backend that cuts through a the agave nectar sweetness. Even a little flat from the crowler, it tasted great.

But the beer I think really captures the rustic spirit of Milkhouse is Goldie’s Best Bitter. It’s a 4.2% ale brewed with honey and Maryland grown Cascade hops. where you might expect a lot of grapefruit and pine, you get a rush of grassy freshness. It tastes dirty, earthy, fecund. It tastes of spring, damp soil, new growth. If they had used Yakima Valley Cascades, I doubt it would have the same flavor. It would probably taste like a lot of the old American Pale Ales you’re used to. But because Milkhouse grows their own hops and keeps their own bees, a simple pale ale can express flavors wholly unique.