To the Higher Glory of Beer: A Sampling of Organic Brews

Organic Budweiser? Yes, it exists, albeit not under the name Budweiser. Anheuser-Busch, this most industrial of brewers who has been more successful in giving American beer a bad name than any temperance movements ever managed, this king of additives and adjuncts has suddenly discovered the virtues of natural, healthy and environmentally friendly?
They may have, of course, but more likely have they noticed that the market for organic and artisanal food products is growing in leaps and bounds and that the shoppers in that market tend to be more affluent, if not more discerning, than the traditional lite-swill crowd that’s been the industrial brewers’ main fan base.
That said, what is organic beer anyway, and is it worth the trouble?
In their simplest form, organic food products, including beer, are produced from ingredients that were themselves grown or raised without synthetic chemicals, like pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or artificial fertilizers. And no synthetic chemicals have been added during processing (brewing, in the case of beer).
In real life it is of course not quite this simple, especially in the United States (it is more straightforward in Europe).
The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), which is in charge of establishing definitions and standards, and of nationwide certification, has developed a system of several levels of organicity.
The top level, the most (the only?) obvious one, is for products that claim to be “100 percent organic”. They have to be exactly that; all their ingredients have to be 100 percent organic, no exceptions. Well, actually, two exceptions are allowed: water and salt as ingredients don’t have to be certified organic. These foods have to certified to be 100 percent organic by an accredited certifying agent. The packaging labels have to list the ingredients, the producer and the certification agency, and they may show the USDA organic seal.
The next step down is for products that claim to be “organic”. They in fact only need to be 95 percent organic. The other five percent can be “nonorganically produced agricultural ingredients which are not commercially available in organic form and/or other substances, including yeast, allowed by 7 CFR 205.605”, as stated on the USDA requirements list for “labeling alcoholic beverage containers”, i.e. also beer bottles.
The list of exemptions, by the way, was reason for a heated controversy during the spring and summer of last year, when some brewers wanted hops to be included as exempt. What at first sight looked like a typical case of big brewers versus small brewers (Anheuser-Busch wanted hops to be exempt from organic certification, while Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery for example did not), was on closer inspection a bit more complicated. The small brewers did not present a united front, and those that wanted an exemption for hops argued that organic hops was very hard to come by, and that if hops had to be organic, too, it might make it virtually impossible to brew (or sell) organic beer in the United States. Since there is indeed a worldwide hops shortage (not just of organic, but of all hops) due mainly to economic and meteorological factors, they made their point.
The labeling requirements for “organic” are pretty much the same as for “100 percent organic”, including the certifying agency.
I should at this point mention that organic certification is required throughout the production chain, from basic raw material to finished product.
Thus, for beer to be called organic, for example, not only does the farm that grows the barley have to be certified organic, but also the malting facility that turns the barley into malt before shipping it to the brewery, which of course has to follow the USDA’s rules as well.
If a beer (or other food product) contains at least 70 percent organic ingredients, it can be called “made with organic ingredients”, but it can’t show the USDA organic seal.
“Some organic ingredients” means less than 70 percent of ingredients are organic.
In its purest form, beer is a very natural product. For almost 500 years, the Bavarian Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot) has mandated that beer can only be made from water, malt and hops (yeast was discovered later as being part of the natural mix and was thus grandfathered in).
Of course it also only ever applied to German brewers and whatever foreign ones followed it voluntarily (or wanted to sell their beer in Germany).
Many other brewers, meanwhile, have been happily using whatever additives they thought fit, some natural and quite good (like coriander and orange peel to make Belgian wit beer), but others very chemical and purely profit-driven.
Among the latter for instance are additives to enhance color, add flavor, stabilize the head, shorten the lagering time or prevent the beer from becoming skunky in green bottles. In the 1970s and 1980s many European and American brewers used formaldehyde as a preservative.
Most industrial brewers still use chemical additives, but most small craft breweries make a much more natural product. Traditionally, at least in Europe, brewing barley has also been treated less heavily with pesticides and herbicides than regular barley, because, as a brewer once told me, “those chemicals affect the quality of the beer – and not for the better”.
When we buy an organic beer, at the very least we know that we don’t drink a bunch of chemicals and that the raw materials were produced in an environmentally friendly way.
But how do organic beers taste differently? Better? Let’s see.

Organic ESB
Lakefront
Milwaukee

ESB stands for Extra Special Bitter, with bitter being a classic, although very wide-ranging, English ale style. Actually, this one is anything but bitter, and although some cascade hops make a fleeting appearance, it is a very mellow, malty amber brew. It is made from 100 percent certified organic ingredients. USDA-organic certified.

Organic Revolution
New Glarus Brewing
New Glarus

This is an eminently drinkable, refreshing, hoppy golden ale, bottle-fermented, made from Bavarian organic Hallertau hops and Wisconsin “organically malted barley”. I’m not sure if they meant to imply a difference between “organic barley” and “organically malted barley” when they put the latter on the label. According to brewmaster Dan Carey, all the ingredients are 100 percent organic, although the beer is not certified. How they got around the USDA’s certification requirement is beyond me, especially since it clearly states “organic” on the labels, but the beer is good.

Wolaver’s India Pale Ale
Otter Creek Brewing
Vermont

Hoppy, fruity with a spicy, dry finish – definitely a good India pale ale. Made with “organic barley and hops grown by small independent farms”. No preservatives and not pasteurized. The bottling date is printed on the bottle. USDA-organic certified.

Organic Porter
Butte Creek Brewing
California

Calling themselves “the official beer of planet Earth” and “organic pioneers”, the brewers in Chico, California are not only environmentally friendly, but also beer-drinker friendly: their organic porter is good. Rich, smooth, chocolaty, made from organic malt and hops, with, European-style, the alcohol content (5.9% by volume) printed on the bottle. Also consumer-friendly. I wish all brewers did that. USDA-organic certified.

Stone Mill Pale Ale
Green Valley Brewing
California

You have to read the very fine print on the Stone Mill website to find out that this is Anheuser-Busch’s attempt at being green. The barley is organic, but the hops aren’t. While they can’t be accused of mislabeling the organic part, they should be scolded for calling this brew a pale ale. It’s a pleasant enough beer, but apart from a hint of fruity hoppiness somewhere at the very beginning of a sip, it tastes an awful lot like one of so many nondescript amber lagers and ales. Someone likes molasses at A-B. USDA-organic certified.

Scarecrow Golden Pale Ale
Wychwood Brewery
Oxfordshire, England

The only foreigner in our line-up, although by no means the only organic overseas beer. Not overly hoppy, but refreshingly crisp, slightly spicy, with a smooth dry finish. Sold under the name of Circle Master Golden Pale Ale in England, it is made from organic Plumage Archer barley malt, grown on the estate of the Prince of Wales in Gloucestershire. The target hops are “naturally grown”, i.e. not certified organic. USDA-organic certified.