Mark of Great Beer
PUBLISHER Jason Bartis
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Nikki PersleyBartis CONTRIBUTORS Juliet Farmer, Melissa Maki, Krista Mann, Emily Monaco, Katherine Montalto, Erik Neilson, Rochelle Ramos, Dara Reppucci, Jessica ScottReid, Joni Sweet, Brandon Vogel, Matt Wittal, Heather Wood COPY EDITING Proof Positive Papers
ADVERTISEMENT INQUIRIES [email protected] 8006199870, ext. 2
The entire contents of FOOD LOVES BEER magazine are Copyright 2012 by Bartley & Co. LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the ex pressed written permission of the publisher. FOOD LOVES BEER is published bimonthly by Bartley & Co. LLC, P.O. Box 21953, Brooklyn, NY 11201. FoodLovesBeerMagazine.com
The Mark of Great Beer
Quality Wins Again! BY JONI SWEET
HAVING SPENT MUCH OF THE 1970s living in England with his wife Merle, Mark Ruedrich has al ready experienced the bliss of a cold, crisp beer accom panied by a bite to eat in the company of good friends at the local brewpub. Despite their enthrallment with the thriving pub culture, the couple planned to move back across the pond, to the country that wouldn't begin to appreciate quality brews for decades to come. Sure, monoliths like AnheuserBusch and Coors were pumping out millions of barrels of beer annually, but Mark knew he would need to take direct action if he were to ever taste a beer as wellcrafted as those from his favorite English brewery, Black Awton, which brewed bitter ales in a barn right down the singlelane road from the rural pub he had grown to love. “I got a taste for beer culture, something that didn't really exist in the states at the time,” says Ruedrich. “When we moved here to Fort Bragg, I discovered that there wasn't a decent beer to be had. The only way I was going to get one was to learn how to brew my own.” Nearly 25 years later, Ruedrich is still brewing his own as the brewmaster and president of North Coast Brewing Co. For him, brewing isn't about making a buck. It’s about devoting decades to reviving and per fecting traditional styles for the American palate, while also infusing them with history. He began with just three beers when he opened the doors of the brewpub in 1988—Red Seal Ale, Old #38 Stout and the now bestselling Scrimshaw Pilsner.
Now, his team of 100 passionate beerlovers pro duces nearly a dozen craft beers yearround, while oc casionally surprising customers with special barrel aged versions of their favorites. Ruedrich says that high alcohol beers tend to age very well, and he'll be releas ing samples of a 10yearaged Old Stock paired with artisan cheese at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego in May. Old Stock was designed to be aged. Ruedrich says the maris otter malt is the “star of the show” and exhibits an “amazing depth of character,” that only gets better each year. “The beer really mellows beautifully and changes in a lovely way with time,” he says. “The very pro nounced fruity flavors that the beer expresses when it’s very young mellow with age and really fade into the background after three or four years. When you get into the older vintages like 2000 and 2001, the beer really has a portlike quality.” Ruedrich says his team subscribes to a “contemplative approach” when working toward his ultimate goal: worldclass beers. Each ingredient and step of the brewing process receives careful thought and consideration; the team never rushes to finish a product. Grand Cru, for example, is made with agave nectar instead of Belgian candy sugar, and aged in bourbon barrels, resulting in a champagnelike charac ter. Authenticity is the name of the game for Ruedrich, who uses traditional Belgian yeast strains and single hop varietals as he brings new life to old styles.
“There's been a movement toward extreme beers
“In the early days, I tried to figure out and emulate beers that I enjoyed drinking, really wellestablished, Joni Sweet is a San Francisco based food and travel writ traditional styles,” explains Ruedrich. er with a passion for the sweet things in life.
61 | FOOD LOVES BEER
FOOD LOVES BEER | 62
Mark and Moose. Photograph courtesy o North Coast Brewing Co.
63 | FOOD LOVES BEER
in the last few years, and it's not really something I've embraced as an idea,” says Ruedrich. “The attraction in the experience for me is to have a very drinkable, en joyable and distinctive finished product. Over the years, [we've been] doing the same things consistently, so that the beers taste the same every time a consumer opens one. A lot of what makes good beer is the same process that a chef goes through in making delicious food.” Having won more than 70 awards, there's no doubt that North Coast Brewing Co.'s beers have impressed thousands as approachable, memorable craft brews. His beers are found in nearly every state, and are distribut ed as far as Asia. That said, Ruedrich knows his beers come to fruition when paired with quality food, and creating foodfriendly brews has been at the heart of his operation from the very beginning. “A lot of the ale yeasts which were around in the ‘80s had a very strong fruity flavor profile, so pro nounced that it really overshadowed the character of the malt and the hops,” Ruedrich says. “I chose a neu tral strain that we're still using now because it allowed the malt and the hops to shine through. They comple ment and contrast with a much wider variety of foods than if we had chosen to use a very strongflavored yeast to make our beers.”
At the North Coast Brewery grill, they recommend pairing the malty Acme California Pale Ale with sharp Welsh rarebit or the clean and light Scrimshaw Pilsner with fresh steamed clams. Occasionally, they even scoop vanilla ice cream into the heavy and bold Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout for a postdinner treat. Ruedrich says he's also made an effort to work with artisan cheesemakers to create interesting pairings. “This part of the country is a very winecentric region, so it's been very difficult in many instances for us to get people's attention,” he says. “When they think of pairing something with cheese, the first word out of their mouths is always wine, but beer and cheese are far more sympathetic to one another than wine and cheese are.” This year is an exciting one for the brewery. The owners recently signed a threeyear contract to be the brewery partner of the Monterey Jazz Festival. They are also advancing the brewery's barrelaging program, which includes a new facility with a capacity of 500 bourbon and brandy barrels for aging Old Stock and Old Rasputin. Ruedrich says that while they have no new products in the works at this time, “Our hallmark of North Coast beer is consistency, so customers will certainly see more of the same, which is a good thing.”
FOOD LOVES BEER | 64
BREWING A COMMUNITY Ruedrich knows that a successful brewery is built on a thriving community. Through music education grants, sustainable brewing practices, and partnerships with the local farmers, North Coast Brewing Co. has had community at the heart of its operation since the very beginning. Here's a sampling of the company's philanthropic ventures.
Since 2007, NCBC has donated nearly $400,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, an organization that brings free public school jazz education workshops and collegelevel jazz training to promising students. In fact, the brewery dubbed its Belgian Style Abbey Ale “Brother Thelonious” after the nonprofit's namesake and it makes a donation to the institute for every bottle sold. In addition to the Monterey Jazz Festival, NCBC also sponsors the Redwood Jazz Alliance, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, and the San Francisco Jazz Festival. Ruedrich and North Coast’s senior vice president Doug Moody are longtime jazzlovers, so support for the genre was natural for the pair. The Noyo Food Forest, a group aiming to improve the local food system through education, social enterprise, and community involvement on the Mendocino Coast, also receives generous support from NCBC. In addition to financial support, the brewpub recently began serving greens grown by the organization, adding local flair to hearty fare. While other beer companies might send their spent grain to landfills, NCBC makes a point to put every last bit of it to good use. Local farmers have received literally tons of the byproduct from NCBC to use as a nutritious dietary supplement for their animals. NCBC is currently working on using the spent grain to develop biochar, an extremely fertile soil supplement made from charcoal. They've already tested a few experimental batches and hope to produce it regularly for the Noyo Food Forest and local gardeners and farmers in the future.
65 | FOOD LOVES BEER
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Nikki PersleyBartis CONTRIBUTORS Juliet Farmer, Melissa Maki, Krista Mann, Emily Monaco, Katherine Montalto, Erik Neilson, Rochelle Ramos, Dara Reppucci, Jessica ScottReid, Joni Sweet, Brandon Vogel, Matt Wittal, Heather Wood COPY EDITING Proof Positive Papers
ADVERTISEMENT INQUIRIES [email protected] 8006199870, ext. 2
The entire contents of FOOD LOVES BEER magazine are Copyright 2012 by Bartley & Co. LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the ex pressed written permission of the publisher. FOOD LOVES BEER is published bimonthly by Bartley & Co. LLC, P.O. Box 21953, Brooklyn, NY 11201. FoodLovesBeerMagazine.com
The Mark of Great Beer
Quality Wins Again! BY JONI SWEET
HAVING SPENT MUCH OF THE 1970s living in England with his wife Merle, Mark Ruedrich has al ready experienced the bliss of a cold, crisp beer accom panied by a bite to eat in the company of good friends at the local brewpub. Despite their enthrallment with the thriving pub culture, the couple planned to move back across the pond, to the country that wouldn't begin to appreciate quality brews for decades to come. Sure, monoliths like AnheuserBusch and Coors were pumping out millions of barrels of beer annually, but Mark knew he would need to take direct action if he were to ever taste a beer as wellcrafted as those from his favorite English brewery, Black Awton, which brewed bitter ales in a barn right down the singlelane road from the rural pub he had grown to love. “I got a taste for beer culture, something that didn't really exist in the states at the time,” says Ruedrich. “When we moved here to Fort Bragg, I discovered that there wasn't a decent beer to be had. The only way I was going to get one was to learn how to brew my own.” Nearly 25 years later, Ruedrich is still brewing his own as the brewmaster and president of North Coast Brewing Co. For him, brewing isn't about making a buck. It’s about devoting decades to reviving and per fecting traditional styles for the American palate, while also infusing them with history. He began with just three beers when he opened the doors of the brewpub in 1988—Red Seal Ale, Old #38 Stout and the now bestselling Scrimshaw Pilsner.
Now, his team of 100 passionate beerlovers pro duces nearly a dozen craft beers yearround, while oc casionally surprising customers with special barrel aged versions of their favorites. Ruedrich says that high alcohol beers tend to age very well, and he'll be releas ing samples of a 10yearaged Old Stock paired with artisan cheese at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego in May. Old Stock was designed to be aged. Ruedrich says the maris otter malt is the “star of the show” and exhibits an “amazing depth of character,” that only gets better each year. “The beer really mellows beautifully and changes in a lovely way with time,” he says. “The very pro nounced fruity flavors that the beer expresses when it’s very young mellow with age and really fade into the background after three or four years. When you get into the older vintages like 2000 and 2001, the beer really has a portlike quality.” Ruedrich says his team subscribes to a “contemplative approach” when working toward his ultimate goal: worldclass beers. Each ingredient and step of the brewing process receives careful thought and consideration; the team never rushes to finish a product. Grand Cru, for example, is made with agave nectar instead of Belgian candy sugar, and aged in bourbon barrels, resulting in a champagnelike charac ter. Authenticity is the name of the game for Ruedrich, who uses traditional Belgian yeast strains and single hop varietals as he brings new life to old styles.
“There's been a movement toward extreme beers
“In the early days, I tried to figure out and emulate beers that I enjoyed drinking, really wellestablished, Joni Sweet is a San Francisco based food and travel writ traditional styles,” explains Ruedrich. er with a passion for the sweet things in life.
61 | FOOD LOVES BEER
FOOD LOVES BEER | 62
Mark and Moose. Photograph courtesy o North Coast Brewing Co.
63 | FOOD LOVES BEER
in the last few years, and it's not really something I've embraced as an idea,” says Ruedrich. “The attraction in the experience for me is to have a very drinkable, en joyable and distinctive finished product. Over the years, [we've been] doing the same things consistently, so that the beers taste the same every time a consumer opens one. A lot of what makes good beer is the same process that a chef goes through in making delicious food.” Having won more than 70 awards, there's no doubt that North Coast Brewing Co.'s beers have impressed thousands as approachable, memorable craft brews. His beers are found in nearly every state, and are distribut ed as far as Asia. That said, Ruedrich knows his beers come to fruition when paired with quality food, and creating foodfriendly brews has been at the heart of his operation from the very beginning. “A lot of the ale yeasts which were around in the ‘80s had a very strong fruity flavor profile, so pro nounced that it really overshadowed the character of the malt and the hops,” Ruedrich says. “I chose a neu tral strain that we're still using now because it allowed the malt and the hops to shine through. They comple ment and contrast with a much wider variety of foods than if we had chosen to use a very strongflavored yeast to make our beers.”
At the North Coast Brewery grill, they recommend pairing the malty Acme California Pale Ale with sharp Welsh rarebit or the clean and light Scrimshaw Pilsner with fresh steamed clams. Occasionally, they even scoop vanilla ice cream into the heavy and bold Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout for a postdinner treat. Ruedrich says he's also made an effort to work with artisan cheesemakers to create interesting pairings. “This part of the country is a very winecentric region, so it's been very difficult in many instances for us to get people's attention,” he says. “When they think of pairing something with cheese, the first word out of their mouths is always wine, but beer and cheese are far more sympathetic to one another than wine and cheese are.” This year is an exciting one for the brewery. The owners recently signed a threeyear contract to be the brewery partner of the Monterey Jazz Festival. They are also advancing the brewery's barrelaging program, which includes a new facility with a capacity of 500 bourbon and brandy barrels for aging Old Stock and Old Rasputin. Ruedrich says that while they have no new products in the works at this time, “Our hallmark of North Coast beer is consistency, so customers will certainly see more of the same, which is a good thing.”
FOOD LOVES BEER | 64
BREWING A COMMUNITY Ruedrich knows that a successful brewery is built on a thriving community. Through music education grants, sustainable brewing practices, and partnerships with the local farmers, North Coast Brewing Co. has had community at the heart of its operation since the very beginning. Here's a sampling of the company's philanthropic ventures.
Since 2007, NCBC has donated nearly $400,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, an organization that brings free public school jazz education workshops and collegelevel jazz training to promising students. In fact, the brewery dubbed its Belgian Style Abbey Ale “Brother Thelonious” after the nonprofit's namesake and it makes a donation to the institute for every bottle sold. In addition to the Monterey Jazz Festival, NCBC also sponsors the Redwood Jazz Alliance, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, and the San Francisco Jazz Festival. Ruedrich and North Coast’s senior vice president Doug Moody are longtime jazzlovers, so support for the genre was natural for the pair. The Noyo Food Forest, a group aiming to improve the local food system through education, social enterprise, and community involvement on the Mendocino Coast, also receives generous support from NCBC. In addition to financial support, the brewpub recently began serving greens grown by the organization, adding local flair to hearty fare. While other beer companies might send their spent grain to landfills, NCBC makes a point to put every last bit of it to good use. Local farmers have received literally tons of the byproduct from NCBC to use as a nutritious dietary supplement for their animals. NCBC is currently working on using the spent grain to develop biochar, an extremely fertile soil supplement made from charcoal. They've already tested a few experimental batches and hope to produce it regularly for the Noyo Food Forest and local gardeners and farmers in the future.
65 | FOOD LOVES BEER
