With a nod to the local-foods trend, some restaurant and bar operators slake the beer drinker's thirst for variety by promoting seasonal brews made close to home, often touting them with menu tie-ins.
Of course, chefs have long known the advantages in freshness, flavor and uniqueness that seasonal and artisanal ingredients have over most foodstuffs shipped in from afar. For similar reasons, the "go local" notion is catching on among those who manage beer programs as well.
Take the all-Colorado draft beer selection — 10 tap handles strong — at Summit, a restaurant at the Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, Colo. The homegrown lineup has helped the outlet become a magnet for beer-fancying tourists and residents. "The majority of travelers to a destination resort want to try things that are unique to the area," said Tim Baldwin, wine director. "People from the community also like to come in to see what's new and interesting."
At press time, the Summit beer list was in transition from relatively light and refreshing summer-style brews like Mothership Wit from New Belgium Brewing and Agave Wheat from Breckenridge Brewery, both in Colorado, to more substantial and flavorful brews for cool-weather drinking. "We're thinking about adding a couple of IPAs [India Pale Ales] and maybe a couple of larger-style ales," said Baldwin. When winter draws closer, robust holiday-style ales will arrive, hiking flavor, body and strength still higher. Under consideration now for the holiday lineup is an unusual beer style called milk stout from a nearby brewery. "It'll be a fun, delicious, creamy beer to enjoy," Baldwin said.
And enjoy them they do in a state known for its enthusiasm for craft beer. Representatives from nearly 100 Colorado breweries and brewpubs are attending the Brewers Association Great American Beer Festival in Denver next month. "Even people here who aren't hard-core beer drinkers — like my wife — like sampling winter and Oktoberfest beers," said Jason Rogers, executive chef of the St. Julien Hotel & Spa in Boulder, Colo., which keeps a dozen Boulder County brews on tap.
Also promoting vigorously this fall are the seven Hops restaurant-breweries owned by Madison, Ga.-based Rita Restaurant Corp. Their annual Hoptoberfest event fetes Hops' signature Hoptoberfest beer, a medium-bodied, mildly hoppy Oktoberfest lager, co-promoted with hearty Teutonic dishes like Brewmaster Bratwurst, chicken schnitzel and potato pancakes.
"Hoptoberfest is our most popular beer and certainly our most popular seasonal," said Paul Seidman, Rita Restaurant Corp. president and chief operating officer. "We work our menu around these seasonal beers. They're very important to the customers."
Seidman noted that not so long ago local beer was the rule, not the exception. "I'm in my 50s, and I grew up in New York City," he said. "Years ago there was a heritage of local breweries — Schaefer, Piels, Rheingold and Knickerbocker. You defined who you were by the beer you drank locally. Also, it was fresher, better tasting and more economical."
He sees an analogy to on-premise brewing establishments like Hops that offer the utmost in local product — brewed only steps from the dining room. "We can give people seasonal beers that are fresh, made with tender loving care and have indicative flavors," said Seidman. "And we're not worried about how they're handled, because we do that ourselves, from start to finish."
Local and regional color abounds in the Holiday Mini-Tour at Old Chicago restaurants. The Mini-Tour is an annual 12-item list of special Christmas and winter beers offered for limited-time sampling around the holidays, with the reward of a t-shirt for patrons who try them all. Because few holiday brews are widely distributed, corporate headquarters specs four brands that must be carried by all individual units, which number 98 in 24 states, and has them fill in the rest with local favorites.
Thus a Minnesota store's Mini-Tour may feature Lake Superior Old Man Winter Ale (in Duluth), Summit Winter Ale (in St. Paul) and Schell Snowstorm Ale (in New Ulm), plus other leading Midwest microbrews, while a Colorado store will be strong in home-state specialties.
"We have almost 100 Old Chicago restaurants, and each one has a different Holiday Mini-Tour," said Tracy Finklang, corporate beverage manager for Louisville, Colo,-based Rock Bottom Restaurants, Old Chicago's parent company.
It's a formula that works. Old Chicago's several Mini-Tours throughout the year are on a 16-year streak of positive year-to-year comparable sales increases. "We definitely see spikes every time we do a tour," said Finklang. "In the course of a six-week Mini-Tour with 12 beers, all different in each store, we'll sell probably as a company about 30,000 units of each beer. That's a lot of beer — 360,000 beers over the month of December."