Extreme Adjuncts

Recently, a friend in Texas pointed out to me that some breweries in his area are starting to experiment widely and wildly with their beers - aging them in barrels, adding peppers, spices, and other oddities.

Upon hearing this, my thinking is twofold. Is this a trend that has long-term national viability?

And perhaps more importantly: what drives brewers to add strange things to beer?

I think the answers to these questions are related.

It's pretty clear by this point, at least to someone living in the Pacific Northwest, that certain adjuncts have become so frequently used as to be considered standard. Here I'm thinking of stouts in particular - it's common to find coffee, chocolate, cacao, oatmeal, and vanilla added to these beers at various points. By contrast, there are plenty of adjuncts used that tend to define a beer - strong spices, peppers, animal parts, intense fruits, and others. So here's my general term for these non-standard, often eye-catching ingredients in beer: extreme adjuncts.

Back to the questions. Broadly speaking, it can sometimes be hard to discern a brewer's intent on producing a specific beer, but for the sake of understanding, I'll divide the reasoning behind the use of extreme adjuncts into three categories:

1. The desire to tweak or riff on an existing recipe.

2. The desire to make a better beer than would otherwise be possible.

3. The sheer novelty.

Point 1 is deeply embedded in brewing philosophy: iteration begets quality. Small changes in the ingredients and brewing environment can create very different beers. And once you're working with a solid, easily-reproduced recipe, you can begin to tweak it to attempt to improve it further. It's easy to see how 'Hey, let's use a little less of this bittering hop and a little more to dry hop' can progress to 'And hey, we've got these fresh spruce tips, let's throw some of those in, too'.

When using non-traditional adjuncts, it can be very difficult to determine the appropriate amount to add to create the desired effect, or even if the selected adjunct will do what the brewer expects. As a result, beers created under point 1 will tend to taste like inferior versions of their base beer, with occasional exceptions. A great local example is Oakshire's Goatshed IPA, made using Wandering Goat coffee - it's got all the hopping of the base beer Watershed, but the coffee is also prominent, and the piney and citrusy hops mesh well with the rich, sweet coffee.

Point 2 is, I believe, the most important development of the three, and reflects a maturing beer market. Brewers who make beers using Point 2's philosophy understand that while beer is often just barley, hops, yeast, and water, these ingredients are not what defines beer. There are far fewer Point 2 beers, because deconstructing a beer recipe, rebuilding it around an extreme ingredient, and coming up with something great on the other end is a challenging feat. A great local example of this type of thinking is Allies Win The War, a collaboration between Ninkasi and 21st Amendment. It's a strong ale made with dates where the date sweetness is the backbone of the beer.

And.. Point 3. This is beer made for the hell of it. It's rarely balanced, and often a trainwreck, but sometimes it's that kinda trainwreck where you can't help but stare. At best, you get something like Wynkoop's Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout - a foreign-style stout made with roasted bull testicles which is actually quite excellent. At worst, it's something like Rogue's Voodoo Bacon Maple beer - which does indeed taste like smoke, salt, and maple sugar. Or from Deschutes, The Stoic - a Belgian-style quad that's a blend of several different types of barrel-aged beer, and which reminded me, not-so-fondly, of the fountain 'suicide drink' made of a little bit of every type of fountain soda available at a restaurant.

Getting back to my initial question - will extreme adjuncts be a viable long-term trend in the industry? I think we'll just have to wait and see. However, I'm willing to go on the record saying that Point 1 and Point 3 beers will come and go, but there will always be plenty of room in the market for excellent Point 2-inspired craft beer.