Outside Naughty Oak Brewing Company on a particularly chilly day in early October, patrons are reaching for cover, bundling their summer-tanned legs into fleece blankets, and hiding their hands from the season’s first cold whips of wind.
As the light spills from the setting sun into the Orcutt brewery, owner Stephen Kitts is busy in the back, readying beers he’s been planning to serve for just such an occasion.
“It’s fall, winter, it’s cooling off,” he said. “People want a beer that makes them feel comfortable, that warms them up and fits the mood of the season.”
As the summer heat bends into the cool air of autumn and winter, beer connoisseurs’ tastes shift to heavier beers flavored with familiar ingredients of the season. But it’s not just about Christmas or pumpkin spice beers. Many local brewers are digging deep for inspiration and creativity, seeking to put their own unique stamp on the concept of seasonality.
‘Warm and roasty’
Dwarfed by the massive metallic vats that hold his creations, Kitts takes time to consider which of his beers would make a perfect holiday meal accompaniment. With dozens to choose from and even more on the way, Kitts mulls over the question in a serious manner befitting a craftsman speaking about his creations.
After consideration, Kitts names Foxy Brown, an oatmeal brown ale on the menu.
“It’s something you can drink from appetizer to dessert, and it has a nice rich body to it,” he later explained. “There’s just enough malt profile in there to let you know you’re drinking a hearty beer, but it does clean up a bit in the end, so it doesn’t linger on your palate. It’s not cloying … it cleanses your palate.”
Kitts said the brewery, which opened less than a year ago, works to think about seasonality and what customers might prefer while staying true to the brewery’s roots.
“We like more dry beers typically than a sweeter beer,” he explained. “We do have a few sweeter beers we put on our menu to balance things out for people, but typically we like a nice clean beer regardless of the style.”
Like many brewers in the region, Kitts takes hints from the weather and local seasonal goods to drive what the brewery puts out. As winter creeps in, beer drinkers want to see changes, but not too much disruption. Familiarity, while offering something new, is key, especially for a young brewery.
“We have a porter, which is borderline stout,” he said. “It’s coming out in a few weeks. It’s really going to swing us into the winter season. It’s nice and warm and roasty. It’s got some alcohol behind it, but not too much. You can have a full pint of it and feel comfortable.”
The beer has chocolate notes that permeate each sip. Kitts said they wanted to make a beer that was big and rich that could allow bargoers to have a few pints to warm up in the colder evenings.
Kitts said the brewery has also started to branch out into something new.
“We just kind of started putting together our barrel program,” he said. “It’s a very small program. We’re going to do limited releases of it quarterly.”
For the first planned release, Kitts took a batch of the the Rebel Red beer currently featured on Naughty Oak’s menu aside to age in barrels.
“We put half of a batch in red wine barrels, and we aged it for six weeks,” Kitts said. “We put another batch in for six months.”
The version aged for six weeks will be served on tap, while the version aged for six months will be bottled for limited release.
Kitts said he’s also planning to release a pilsner, inspired by the unique style and flavor of New Zealand beers. Dubbed “New Zed,” the beer uses a light pilsner base combined with New Zealand hops.
“We do it in a way that emphasizes the tropical citrus and somewhat grassy hops character that comes out of New Zealand,” he said. “When a hop comes out of that region, you can tell. You know when you’re having it.”
While beers inside the controlled laboratory-like settings typical to regional craft breweries aren’t necessarily impacted by drastic changes in weather, Kitts said the seasons still play a role in the outcome of the beer.
“It is still an organic process that happens from grain and hops,” he said. “And hops come from the earth.”
Spice, sips, and cigars
Brewed in the summer and served as customers start to think about leaves changing color or making Thanksgiving holiday plans, autumn beers typically embrace warm spiced flavors such as cinnamon, or familiar seasonal treats such as the ever-popular pumpkin spice. Styles include beers such as red ales, India Pale Ales (IPA), and pumpkin ales.
But one of the most popular autumn beers is the Oktoberfest beer. The brew, named after the famous annual festival in Munich, is a dark lager, bottom-fermenting, noted for its malty smooth taste and toasted flavors. With an ABV (alcohol by volume) around 6 percent, it’s also one of Santa Maria Brewing Company’s best selling beers of the year.
“It’s starting to get a little bit cooler, and people are more apt to be sitting around a fireplace or smoking a cigar with it, enjoying food,” brewer and co-owner Dan Hilker said. “So we tend to come out with our heartier beers.”
The Oktoberfest beer will stay on tap through January at Santa Maria Brewing. A heartier as-yet-unnamed stout will appear by Christmas, which will also see the arrival of some of the brewery’s Bear’s Breath barley wine, which tops out at around 12 percent ABV, Hilker said.
“Barley wine is almost a year-round offering,” he said, “but we make a fresh batch in November. … It’s a really good dessert beer or to have something as a winter warmer because it has a lot of alcohol in it.”
Ryan Colburn, beer educator with Firestone Walker Brewing Company, said that during the winter, as the weather starts to cool down, the brewery is inspired to do some stout or darker beers.
“In the summer when it’s hotter people want their beer lighter and cleaner,” he said. “We kind of go with the weather and keep it traditional that way.”
In September, Firestone released Mocha Merlin. Made from its milk stout, brewers add coffee and cocoa nibs to to the brew. Colburn said it’s the brewery’s fall/winter seasonal beer, which will be around through December and into January, distributed in six pack cans, not bottles.
In November the company will celebrate its 21st anniversary with a special beer made from a blend of all the barrel-aged offerings currently available, Colburn said. Named “21,” the beer is made of stronger, darker beers mixed together, he said.
“That’s something people like to drink on the colder days since it is a stronger barrel-aged stout,” Colburn said.
Additionally, Firestone is preparing another in its series of Leo v. Ursus (lion versus bear) beers, a limited release called Inferos, which will be available until December. The 8.2 ABV imperial IPA beer is made with 25 percent rye grain and uses 4 pounds of hops per barrel. The final addition to the Leo v. Ursus line is named Wookus, a beer that resembles Firestone’s now-retired Wookie Jack beer, and will roll out by January.
Keeping it fresh
Seasonality isn’t just a concept that exists in locavore dining. Craft brewers also follow seasonal guidelines of sorts, steered by changing temperatures or the availability of certain key ingredients.
In Buellton, Firestone’s Barrelworks tasting room offers select, limited-run wild ales and barrel-aged spirits. The brewery shuns traditional adherence to pure yeast strains and embraces wild yeast and bacteria, experimenting in all steps to produce some of the most unusual beers on the Central Coast.
On Oct. 11, Barrelworks released three new beers: Peachy Bones, Zinskin, and Reginald Brett. Master Blender Jim Crooks, sometimes known as “Sour Jim,” used white peaches locally sourced and fermented for four months along with a 12-month aged saison to create Peachy Bones.
“I think of the growing seasons in the Central California area,” Crooks said of his process. “And also what fresh produce is available that we can use in some of the beers that we’re making. A lot of the beers come just by chance through connecting with local growers in this area, keeping informed about what’s happening with their vineyards or their orchard.”
After the quiet winter months, Crooks said he reconnects with local growers and vintners to discuss what the brewery did with their product and if there were successes or failures in the beers. For future batches, he tries to be unique and forward thinking.
“We talk about trying some new things,” he said. “I always look at what’s being offered, looking more toward the inventive side. I see if they have special varieties of fruit or grape.”
Crooks said another aspect of the process is how eager the growers are to get feedback on how well their products worked in his beers.
“They’re connected and they love the idea of what we’re doing out here,” he said. “It’s a great way to stay in touch with the community.”
Crooks said Barrelworks brewers have branched out into using seven different wine grape varieties from the Santa Ynez area. He said using local products can impart a distinct regional individuality to beers where factors such as weather or recent fires can play a major part in the way things taste and smell when they’re coming out of the orchard or off of the vine.
“In the last few seasons we’ve done more and more work with local vintners,” he said. “We’re actually trying to reuse some of their waste materials like pomace from the fermentation.”
While ultimately the process is about pleasing customers who want variety throughout the year, Firestone’s Colburn pointed out another important aspect of seasonal brewing: creative stimulation.
“For the brewers it’s fun,” Colburn said. “It keeps things fresh for everyone on the production side so they’re not always doing the same thing.”
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose is never sour. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 2, 2017.
