The smallest state packs quite a punch when it comes to the smallest beers. Building on its craft-beer brewery and a handful of brewpubs, Rhode Island is gaining strength in the microbeer scene.
Craft beer, which is produced independently on a small scale using traditional methods - and boasts more complex and intense flavors than mass-produced beer - is on the rise in Rhode Island and across the country. The industry has had a 58 percent increase in sales over the last four years, says Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the Brewers Association.
But craft brewers are fighting the spike in prices of two of their most important ingredients - hops and barley - which they use to make their ales more flavorful than big brands like Budweiser. In the last year, the price of hops has increased 350 to 400 percent, according to Aaron Crossett, a brewer at Providence's Union Station Brewery.
As a result, some craft brewers are turning to beer that derives most of its flavor from yeast and not hops, and others are forced to take in less of a profit despite charging higher prices.
Coastal Extreme Brewing Co., which calls itself the state's only microbrewery, had to raise its prices for only the second time in its history to deal with the hops shortage, but "we won't be forced to reformulate," says Brent Ryan, the brewery's president.
But while higher grain prices are putting brewers in a pinch - the commodities are more costly in part due to the rising price of corn ethanol, Crossett says - specialty brewers see another, more favorable trend: increasing demand.
"It seems that consumers are embracing the beers," says Gregg Glaser, editor of Yankee Brew News and news editor for All About Beer Magazine. "The overwhelming majority of Americans drink mainstream American beer," he says, but the craft beer movement is "always growing throughout the U.S."
Craft brewers tend to make ales and not lagers, Glaser says, which fits in well with New England's beer past. "We were always more of an ale-brewing and drinking part of the country," he says. "The roots of New England brewing" lie in ales, he says.
While the East Coast is known for making more ales, the Midwest has more lager in its history. The difference between an ale and a lager lies in the type of yeast used.
Ryan says he is trying to "get people away from just drinking yellow fizzy beer." He and three other Colby College graduates started Coastal Extreme Brewing after realizing there wasn't a microbrewery in Rhode Island. Now, nine years later, the Newport Storm producer is still the only true distributing microbrewery in the state.
"The one thing that we really wanted to do," Ryan says, was "develop a local brewery." Coastal Extreme sells 85 percent of its five lines of beer in Rhode Island and only exports to Connecticut and Massachusetts. "We really wanted to give an identity to our beer and Rhode Island beer in general," he says.
The brewery makes about 4,500 barrels of beer a year in 20-barrel batches. Though some brews take longer to make, most are done in about two weeks, Ryan says.
"A lot of the mantra of the craft beer movement is to drink local," Glaser says. "It's really easy to do that in New England."
"We also wanted to make beers that didn't just focus on hops, (but) that also focused on the malt characteristic," Ryan says. The brewery's Hurricane Amber Ale has a "sweet malty flavor balanced by ample but delicate hopping," according to the company's Web site.
But the current shortage of hops is not what turned the company to maltier beers. To change the recipes of their beer "just to react to a cost situation doesn't seem like a good idea for us," Ryan says. The focus on malt makes Coastal Extreme Brewing's beer noticeably different from other craft beer, he says.
Union Station Brewery, on the other hand, is turning to different kinds of beer to deal with the ingredient shortage. The brewery, part of the John Harvard's Brew House chain, is "experimenting with some Belgian ales," Crossett says, which get most of their flavor from yeast, not hops and barley. This makes "a nice, big-bodied, full-flavored beer," he says.
India Pale Ales, which rely on hops for their bitter taste, are very expensive to make, Crossett says, and "a lot of craft brewers are starting to adjust." Still, he says, "it's tough to see where it goes from here."
Despite the struggle against high-priced ingredients, Union Station has not stopped making its most well-known beers - the Golden Spike, the brewpub's "flagship pale ale" with a "nice light American style" and the Half Bay IPA, according to Crossett.
The brewery produces all of its beer in the restaurant using a 10-barrel system. The small batches allow for more "flavor and really a lot more depth," Crossett says.
"It's really all about just being local," he says.
"Something that's unique about brewpubs is that they can brew in very small batches," Glaser says.
Union Station Brewery works with a 10-barrel system, Crossett says, to create "hand-crafted, small-batch" brews. The beer-making process itself is "pretty simple," he says.
Like Union Station Brewery, Trinity Brewhouse, Providence's other brewpub, takes advantage of the ability to change its beer menu throughout the year. But Trinity, which opened in 1994, has taken its role as a brewpub one step further - the restaurant's Trinity Beer Company began selling its bottled Trinity IPA at liquor stores and bars in 2005.
Trinity's head brewer, Sean Larkin, "comes from a food background," Glaser says. "It's always interesting to see chefs" making beer with unique recipes and tastes, Glaser says.
Trinity's most popular beer is its IPA, but the brewhouse always serves either a lager or pilsener and a porter or stout. "What we focus on is stuff that we feel is seasonal," says Josh Miller, owner of the brewhouse.
The growing popularity of craft beers can be attributed in part to a maturing American beer palette, Miller says. "Consumers are starting to warm up to full-flavored beers."
The "resurgence" of larger microbrews, like Samuel Adams and Dogfish Head, has helped too, Crossett says. Samuel Adams Boston Lager was the second highest selling craft beer in 2007, after Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
Herz compares the increased demand for craft beers to the rise of dark chocolate: "People want flavorful and diverse products."
The northeast region is third in craft beer case sales, ranking after California and the West, according to the Brewers Association, and craft beer makes up 9.9 percent of beer sold in supermarkets.
"A lot of people are getting tired of the Bud Lights and the Coors Lights," Crossett says.
But craft beer's higher price tag is a snag in its popularity, Ryan says. "It's more expensive than Budweiser or Coors or Miller," he says, but "it also tastes quite a bit different."
A six-pack from Coastal Extreme Brewing costs about $7.49, and a six-pack from Trinity costs $7.99, but the same amount of Bud Light costs more than $2 less.
Big-name American lagers "tend not to be as assertive in flavor," he says. "When people try our beer, there's a flavor profile hurdle they have to get over. We think it's a hurdle they should want to get over."
"Where I see the biggest opportunity for us is getting people to stop drinking some of this imported beer," Ryan says. People who drink imported beer are already willing to spend more, so "you don't have to get over the price hurdle at that point."
"Don't just think because you spent more money you got something better," Ryan says.
