Summit Brewing Unchained 12 – Minnesota’s First 100% Organic Ale Available Now

From Summit Brewing:

• March 11: Meet the brewer – MacKenzie’s Pub, Minneapolis, 2-5 pm
• March 11: Release party – Butcher & The Boar beer garden, Minneapolis, 5-8 pm
• March 13: Meet the brewer – Brasa St. Paul, 6-8 pm
  • Brasa St. Paul and Minneapolis will also feature Unchained 12 food pairings from 5-9 pm
• March 14: “Hoppy Meals” pairings – Republic Uptown, 4-6 pm; Republic Seven Corners, 7-9 pm
• March 15: Firkin Friday with Organic Ale cask – Grumpy’s NE, 4 pm
• March 21: Meet Gabe and sample Organic Ale – Four Firkins, 6-8 pm

  More info from Summit:

Why, hello, everyone. Thanks for stopping by. Allow myself to introduce… myself. My name is Gabe Smoley and I am part of the Fellowship of the Brew here at Summit. Prior to working at Summit, I ran a small brewpub in Spokane, Washington. I have been a member of the brewing team here for the past two years and I am thrilled to contribute my first offering to the Unchained Series.

It has been a long and arduous process conceptualizing, planning, organizing, developing, and brewing Unchained #12. I can say without a doubt that this beer has been one of the most challenging projects to complete in my professional brewing career. So, without further ado, I present Unchained #12: 100% Organic Ale. Please hold your applause and all questions until the end. Let us first go over some of the profile details.

Beer Style? Session IPA
This would have to be more of a description of the beer than an actual "style", per se. I like to call it an everyday IPA. As this beer is only around 4.5% alcohol it is not really an IPA, but it is aggressively hopped so it also can not be called a Pale Ale. So, the Session IPA tag really just helps explain that this beer is lower in alcohol and has pronounced hop aroma and flavor.

Flavor Profile: Perfume, rose, potpourri, floral
As this is a "lighter" beer (designed specifically for springtime) the malt characteristics are mild but balanced. One of the most distinguishing characteristics is the hop aroma and flavor. This beer is heavily hopped towards the end of production, specifically in the whirlpool and through dry hopping. Just as a reference, 100% Organic Ale is dry hopped with the same amount of hops that we use in our American-style IPA, Saga. The floral characteristics are derived from the abundant use of Cascade and Centennial (my favorite!) hops.

IBUs: 60
As I mentioned, most of the hop characteristics will come from the end of production, which means a lot of the hop flavor will come from the delicate oils found in the hops and not from iso-alpha acids that are a key component of IBU measurements. Technical, I know, but the point is that IBUs will not define this beer, the hop flavors will!

The Organic bit:
Well, there are many points to convey here and I think we could cover them all over a nice, cold 100% Organic Ale. But, as I do not have one in front of me right now, I will try to briefly address the organic question:

This beer is made with 100% (!!!) organic ingredients, including malt, hops, and yeast (special thanks to the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association for their help completing the certification process). There are currently several USDA certified organic beers in the market that have between 95 – 99.999% organic ingredients. Why are they not 100% organic? Because it is REALLY HARD to make a 100% certified organic beer! Beyond organic malts and hops, there are still processing aids to consider, which I did not use, and then there is the sticky wicket of organic yeast. There are virtually no organic yeast strains available from the large, commercial yeast producing laboratories-so we created our own 100% certified organic yeast! Along with James Fetherston, the brewery Microbiologist, we developed a very challenging process to grow organic yeast in our lab here at Summit.

That’s about it. I do have some time for a few questions.
Let’s start with you sir, the handsome fellow in the front row:

Q:
Yes, Gabe, I have a question. Why did you bother with this? This sounded really difficult!

A:
Yes, Gabe, you are correct. This was a very difficult project. But, we do not shy away from challenges at the Summit brewery. Our company was founded and is surrounded by innovators and risk-takers who do not back down to challenges. I really enjoyed upholding that Summit tradition.

Q:
Ok, Gabe, fine. But why organic?

A:
Great question, Gabe. There are many points to make here. Beyond my own personal feelings about organic products, the organic section of the brewing industry is slowly growing and building steam. I think it is important to support those pioneers working with organic brewing commodities so they will be more readily available for others to use in the future. Like any early technology (think solar panels or electric cars) the entry cost for most is too high to allow them to participate so it takes leaders to jump on board to support these industries. Hopefully we can learn more about how to grow our brewing products with fewer inputs and as little processing as possible.

Q:
So, since this is organic it will taste way different, right?

A:
Nope, not at all, and that is the point. It will be just like any other beer. In fact, the raw ingredients in our industry that we use to make beer go through very little processing anyway. I hope supporting organic brewing products will help us learn some new, sustainable approaches to making beer.

Q: When will your beer be released, Gabe?

A:
100% Organic Ale will hit the streets the first and second week of March. We are planning several fun release events the week of March 11th, which you can find on the Happenings tab of our website. Come out and join us for a beer.

Thank you all for your time and attention. Cheers!

Gabe Smoley
Brewer


LEARN ABOUT THE BEER