I
always like hearing news of production breweries doing session beers, and that’s
why it was great to get an email from Dave Pollack at The Diamond in Brooklyn — a true friend of session beer — introducing
me to Christopher Basso, CEO and brewmaster at Newburgh Brewing, founded a few months ago in Newburgh, New York.
Newburgh’s
up the Hudson from NYC, the historic town where Washington set up his
headquarters in the last years of the Revolutionary War, and where he received
the momentous news of victory. I do not compare Basso to Washington, but he’s clearly a friend of the Session Beer revolution!
He quickly agreed to be interviewed, and had some great stuff to say. It's long, but it's interesting.
When did you start up NBC, and how
long was it in the planning?
We started
our actual brewing operations in early April of 2012 and our taproom opened up the
first week of June 2012. In addition to myself, there are three other full time
NBC staff. Paul Halayko (COO and
President), Charlie Benedetti (Head
of Sales) and Melisa Basso (my sister,
the Taproom Manager).
I had the
idea for a brewery in Newburgh for many years. I was working at Brooklyn Brewery starting in 2004 or 05…I
think (ha ha, a ‘long time’ ago), and trying to learn as much about brewing as
possible, always knowing that I wanted my own thing. The idea really started to
take shape about 3 years ago. It was
a lot of research and planning just to see if this was an actual possibility.
Things took off in January of 2011 when we purchased our building; there was
pretty much no turning back after that point.
Brooklyn was really supportive; they knew of my plans for over a
year and were gracious enough not to kick me out the door. I left there in May
of 2011 and it was 24/7 getting up and running. It was a lot of hard work and continues to be so every day, but I wouldn't
trade it for anything.
What kind and size of system are you
using?
We have a
new 20 barrel DME system. It is a
three vessel system with 5 x 20 bbl. fermenters and 2 x 40 bbl. I estimate we
should be able to get up to about 3,000 barrels production without any
expansion, but the building allows us some room to grow in the future.
Are you a production brewery, a
brewpub, both?
We are
primarily a production brewery distributing in the Hudson Valley and the five
Boroughs (of NYC) right now. We have a really nice "beer hall-esque” taproom that is open on Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday with a kitchen serving a small menu of locally sourced and homemade food. My sister and I both have
culinary backgrounds and so really great food is just as important to me as really great beer.
Tell me about what you’re brewing.
I am a fan
of what you are doing for session beers. We
have four session beers right now (cream ale 4.3%, brown ale 4.3%, saison
3.9%, peat smoked stout 4.0%) out of five, with a fifth one on the way (bitter 3.3%). The last beer is an IPA at 7.0%
and I really only brewed it to shut the
beer geeks up. Now when they ask when am I going to brew an IPA I can say I already did and they missed it.
Is your dedication to lower ABV
going to continue? What originally got you going on that?
I think I
brew session beers mostly because it is what I personally love to drink, not because of some marketing research
or anything. I do think people want it,
but that was never the driving force. I always hope that people drink craft beer for the taste, so I set out to make full-flavored
beers that were low in alcohol. I also think it’s more of a test of my skills as a brewer and I like that. Things
have been going really well in our two short months of existence.
Craft beer
has gotten a bit out of control with the wacky and weird just for the sake of
having a gimmick to sell your beer. Coming from the food world, I saw and still
do see the same idea of doing weird things just to get noticed, when the best
damn food you are ever going to have is some really great ingredients that
haven't been messed with too much.
I hate to
use the word ‘simple’ to describe my
beers, because in this "bigger and weirder is better" world that has
become a negative. ‘Honest’ is a better term. Like my view on food, I think a
real honest to goodness beer is becoming hard to come by. A beer doesn't need
the strangest ingredient or highest ABV to be a really enjoyable experience. A lot
of beer doesn't taste like beer anymore. Beer has become a vehicle just to
carry other flavors like getting a bag of potato chips that tastes like
thanksgiving dinner. What's wrong with just a really great potato that is fried
perfectly and salted just right? That is what gets me really excited. I hope I
am making any sense, I tend to ramble.
Back to
where my session bent views came from. When I first got into brewing, I was
enamored with all the weird and wonderful flavors that beer has to offer. But I
quickly tired of all the analyzing and searching for the rarest and most
esoteric beers. I know that all the guys I worked with felt the same way, and
we would always lament the fact that our Brewmaster's Reserve series always had
to be higher ABV, because people had been conditioned to think something wasn't
special if it didn't have at least 7% ABV. That constant battle against the
salesmen and the brewing team helped to shape what I would do when I was the
only one making the decisions about the beer. So I will be brewing session beers
on a very regular basis. I hope that anything that becomes a real year-round
offering will fall into that, with the more occasional higher ABV offering when
it is essential to the vision of the beer I am making, not just to help sell
beer.
What do bar accounts say when you
show up with low ABV beers to sell? What do you tell them?
Not one
bar or person has mentioned the lower
ABV in anything but a positive way.
We don't even post our ABV in the
taproom and we don't necessarily go into bars selling "session" beer either. We go in selling
interesting and high quality beer; if the topic of ABV comes up, then we
address it with all the great reasons why session beer is a wonderful thing. Up
here in the Hudson Valley, bar and restaurant owners are happy that it helps
their customers be more responsible. Where we are located everyone has to drive
everywhere, so session beer is a good thing for that.
We have
also been seeing that the bar owners are
happy because people may have two of
my session beers at a more reasonable price point [rather] than one higher ABV beer at what seems like
a real steep investment on the
customer’s part. Even with that, there are some that don't buy into the lower ABV thing and I always ask people why they drink craft beer. The response
is always something along the lines
of "because I like the way it
tastes and all the interesting flavors."
The answer is rarely anything to do
with the alcohol content, and that
usually gets them to see where I am
coming from. I drink craft beer for the flavor and I think my session beers are just as interesting
and flavorful as any higher ABV stuff out there.
Bars that
I never would have thought would sell our beer are selling a lot; some real craft places aren't even ordering
because we aren't special enough; because
everyone around has our beer. (Those people don't get what it's all about.) Good beer stands on its own regardless of the ABV. People aren't going to drink something that doesn't taste good just because it's
lower ABV. I try just to make good
quality beer that people like, and hopefully they will figure out the
session thing along the way.
Do you think a bar should have a low
ABV craft ‘alternative,’ or should there be a selection of them, just as there
are selections of DIPAs, IPAs, stouts, pilsners, and others?
Like I was saying earlier, up here where everyone drives I
think it is an absolute necessity
for bars and restaurants. Other than that, I
don't know that there needs to be a session strength beer in a bar just
because of that. I want my beers to stand
on their own merit as a quality beer, not just getting a place on the taps because it is a session beer. We just
opened, so I will take any handles I can
get, but eventually some of the really
great session beers out there will just be seen as great beer and the session thing is just a bonus for the people who understand about session beer.
What’s the atmosphere like for a
session beer brewer? Do you think it’s more receptive than it was five years
ago? Care to speculate on the reasons why or why not?
In all my
time at Brooklyn, the brewing team
wanted to brew all kinds of great
session beers. But whenever we got a chance, it would be the one beer that the salesmen had trouble selling. The notion that high alcohol is
somehow harder to make and more special
was very strong, but I think it is slowly
fading. I remember starting to see
articles on session beer and people talking
about it more and that really excited
me. It has given us something unique
to talk about, but for each bar that thinks
that is great, there are an equal number that see my beer as not being special enough in some
way.
Overall it is probably a wash, and as long as I am making high
quality beer it will all work itself out.
Session or high ABV doesn't matter
if the beer is no good. That is one
of the main reasons we don't post our ABV's in the taproom. There are still many people that go for the
strongest beer to get the most bang for their buck, but I just want people
to order what sounds tasty to them. When
I tell them the ABV, I enjoy the look of
surprise on their face. Hopefully that is one more person who has had that “ah
ha!” moment about ABV and the quality
and flavor of beer.
Session beer has become a small
trend, and that's showing in the number of beers that are tagging themselves as
session beers or "sessionable"...even when they're over 5% or even
over 6%. What's your reaction when you see a beer like that?
That
really frustrates me when beers of
that strength are trying to capitalize
on the popularity of session beer just to sell their product. Trying to say
that a beer is ‘sessionable’ at 6%
just because everything else you make is
8% is not the right way to go about it. And acting like a tough guy, and claiming that you are able to have a session with Imperial Stout
is just someone who probably has some
growing up to do and a lot more to
learn about beer.
That makes
me think of the arc of your typical
craft beer drinker. When people first
get into beer, they are mesmerized
and amazed by all the weird and wonderful and higher ABV. Then as you move
on in your beer education you begin to be able to appreciate the nuance and real craft that goes into
brewing. A session beer lover is someone who can appreciate the beauty of a 3.5% perfectly clean and balanced bitter. They are really more advanced and
sophisticated beer lovers in my opinion.
Making
a beer taste like vanilla or coffee or anything else is easy; making that perfect bitter with nothing to hide
your flaws as a brewer is the real work
of art.
Do you think session beers will sell
outside a brewery’s local area? Should they?
This is a microcosm of what I see as a problem in the industry as a whole. Great
beer will sell wherever it is available in general, whether sessionable or not. The real question is should they, and to my mind that is an emphatic NO. Not just session beer,
but shipping beer all over the country is kind
of sad. I see so many beers from all over the country in our little corner
of NY and it’s not to say that they
aren't great beers but it always makes me think "what is the point?" There are plenty of breweries in the
northeast and at least the east coast to fill
all the taphandles around here with hugely varied and wonderful beers. So
why do we need to ship kegs of beer
across the country?
I am
always amazed at the way the craft
beer industry has never seen any
backlash from the environmental and
locavore communities. Kegs of beer
are heavy stuff and the carbon footprint to be constantly shipping them all
over the country must be enormous. I
have a theory that the reason there
is no backlash is because the same
community of environmentalists and locavores are the most loyal and supportive members of the
craft beer community. Somewhat odd that the same people that have a farm to table restaurant will often
times have a great beer list that
ships things in from the four corners of
the globe.
I
personally have no desire whatsoever
to ever ship my beer too far from home.
Granted, we are very lucky in that
we are in one of the most densely
populated parts of the country, and so there will not be a shortage of
customers for us any time soon. But I just don't think it is good for my product or the environment
for me to be shipping beer all over the place. We try to use all local products in our taproom. As
much as possible, we will keep Newburgh Brewing pretty close to home.
Well, that is my rants and thoughts
on session beer.
Would love for you to take a visit to Newburgh and have a beer together. We eagerly await next year’s Session Beer Day as our launch narrowly
missed it this year.
On the other hand...in another state, Roger Baylor's New Albanian Brewing is throwing their "Session Head" celebration on Session Beer Day; it's a new tradition of winding down from their longer-running "Gravity Head" celebration of huge beers. I was lucky enough to help celebrate the first Session Head last year, and it was a good time, as Roger recalls here, along with more details about this year's event AND the SBP. 
We have our first official participants in Session Beer Day!
