Evolution of Coast Range beverages and use of farmhouse-style
brewing prove successful
Gilroy – There’s a new smell wafting out from among the aromas of the Coast Range Brewery; it’s the sweet smell of validation.
A return to farmhouse-style brewing has rustled up a heady rush of success for Gilroy’s downtown brewery.
In August, the company began slowly shifting it’s production to focus on the creation of a set of European-style, rustic signature beers that have since been extremely well received. The new beers are “more flavored, bolder, older-style beers,” said Jeff Moses, who handles sales and marketing for Coast Range.
The company had been brewing the award winning Coast Range Ale for 10 years when they decided they wanted to take things in a new direction. The decision was made more for reasons of artistic license than of business necessity.
“We had (gained) a following, we were doing fine, but we wanted to create new beers not under the Coast Range brand,” said Moses. “Sometimes products have a lifespan. The Coast Range beer had its day – we looked at it and said ‘it’s time to make a change.'”
Peter Licht, one of a pair of head brewers at Coast Range, said they had been making the same beer for years.
“It sounded fun, we were excited to make new beers under a new brand,” he said.
Although the company did not abandon the Coast Range brand, (in fact, the brewery produces about 20 different beers in addition to its own for other companies), their focus shifted toward bringing the taste and texture of the beer they had in mind to life.
“We saw it as a chance to research beer, especially some of the more obscure styles, the rural, rustic, artisan styles,” said Licht.
Any beer-lover bent on conducting serious “research” of rural, rustic, and artisan beers would inevitably end up sampling a farmhouse style beer at one point or another. But the brewers at the Coast Range Brewery took their quest one step further: back to the European roots of the style. Both Moses and Licht were already familiar with the style and when the name got mentioned the idea of the style “just resonated” according to Coast Range founder Ron Erskine.
The brewery’s foray into the world of farmhouse brewing inevitably led to the well-retained farmhouse brewing traditions in Europe.
“There are all kinds of farmhouse beers,” said Licht. “But one kind sort of sticks out and that’s the farmhouse beer of France and Belgium.” The brewers landed upon the stylistic inspiration of the saison, a Belgian farmhouse ale. As the company’s new label explains, these rustic-style, unfiltered ales were brewed on the small scale for European farmers and their hired hands in the 1800s.
In addition to its taste, the brewers were pleased with the way the entire nature and history of farmhouse brewing fit the brewery’s Gilroy locale.
“We wanted to identify the brand with the area,” said Moses.
According to Licht, brewing has been a rural farm-based enterprise for 1,000 years. Since Gilroy has a long-standing agricultural tradition as a major hay, grain, tobacco, and now garlic producer, brewing a farmhouse-style ale seemed a perfect fit.
The process of transforming the beer from a vague impression into a tangible taste entailed a busy two month period of tasting, experimenting, and adjusting.
It took three weeks to order the special Belgian yeast from a yeast bank in San Diego and then it took another three weeks to brew. Then, of course, the product had to be adjusted to taste in order to fit the brewers’ unique vision. Unlike it’s stricter German counterpart, the American brewing tradition allows for more freedom within the guidelines of a style.
“You follow the guidelines for the style and then you inject your own personality,” Moses said. “American brewing is like America, there’s room for interpretation.”
Steve Donahue, the second head brewer at Coast Range, said the fun part is getting the idea from your head into the glass.
“You kind of have this idea in your head of what the beer will smell like and taste like and you kind of know the different ingredients that will get you there,” he explained, “You recognize it when you have it.”
Erskine never doubted that his team would produce an incredible product. “Peter is a master. I’ve worked with him for 11 years and I’ve never seen him miss in creating a beer within a certain style,” he said.
Now, under the Farmhouse Brewing Company label, the brewery has produced seven unique variations on a farmhouse-style beer theme. Two of the newly crafted beers hail from the American tradition: the Oasthouse IPA. an American Hop Farm Ale, and the Two Tractor Ale, an American Pale Ale. The remaining five (the Saison 7, Stone Fence Porter, Kolsch Bier, Siberian Night Stout, and the Pitch Fork Pilsner) all are more European in character with roots in the traditions of such countries as Germany, Russia, and Belgium. The flavors range from the “dark, chocolatey, robust” undertones of the Stone Fence Porter, to the “bold, racy” hints of the more traditional Saison 7.
Once the brewers were satisfied with the final product, all that remained was to make it available to the public and await their response – and public appreciation for the colorfully distinctive line of beer was certainly not guaranteed.
“We knew the style was good (but) you just never know,” said Moses.
Now, since the line has been picked up by several prominent grocery store chains such as Beverage and More, New Leaf, Whole Foods, and most recently, Nob Hill Foods, the brewers at the Farmhouse Brewing Company can raise their glasses to the fruit of their efforts.
“It’s good to get validation, you know, you work hard, it’s nice if people like it,” said Donahue. “we knew we liked it – we just had to get it out there.”
For a relatively new product with modest marketing resources at its disposal, the Farmhouse line is holding it’s own out on the market.
“Small guys like us, we create the brand organically, little by little, step by step, by word of mouth, until we build momentum and it slowly catches on,” said Erskine.
According to John Cunningham, store manager of Beverages and More in Gilroy, the brand is selling “fairly well.”
“It’s a popular item,” he said.
Even with such short-term success, opportunities for even greater success abound for the Farmhouse Brewing Company since the product is relatively unique within the U.S. According to Moses, there are only about two dozen people who are brewing saison beer in the country but there is no one company that is known as “the” saison brewery.
Perhaps that title might one day belong to the Farmhouse Brewing Company, if they care to claim it. For now, the brewery is content to revel in it’s rebirth.
“A new recipe, it’s like your baby,” said Donahue. “You taste it all along the way and see where it’s heading and when you finally have the finished product, you’re excited.”
Jennifer Van Gundy is a Dispatch staff writer and graphic artist. Reach her at 847-7216 or jv*******@************ch.com.
