HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
OCTOBER2015
33
hemi culture
TASTEMAKERS
A
curious listof ingredientsappears
on the beer menu at Scratch
BrewingCompany inSouthern
Illinois: sassafras leaves in a saison,
elderberries in an ale, cedar in a stout.
Thehyperlocal botanicals—whichalso
include nettles andhickory,maple sap
andmeadowwildflowers,even tannin-
richwhiteoak leaves,dependingon the
season—didn’t have to travel very far
fromnature to tap. In fact,most were
pluckedstraightfromthewoodsoutside.
“Wegetalotoffascinatingflavorsand
aromas by using foraged ingredients,”
explains co-ownerMarika Josephson.
Appropriately, she describes these fla-
vorsas the“terroirof southern Illinois.”
The trend toward foraged beers is
catchingonnationally.At FontaFlora
BreweryinMorganton,NorthCarolina,
brewmasterToddStevenBoeraplucks
five pounds of flower heads for each
batchofdandelionsaison,andhegathers
ramps—a highly prized variety of
wildonion—toadd toacreamale.
“When beer drinkers try our
beer, they are literally getting
somethingtheywon’tfindany-
whereelseon theplanet,”
says
Boera,“because the ingredients
Terroir
onTap
Foragedwildbotanicals
bring the spiritofhyperlocal
cuisine to thebeer garden
BYJODIHELMER
illinois
we use reflect the regionwhere they
weregrown.”
“Foraged beers are the gems worth
trying,”says JuliaHerz, craft beer pro-
gram director of theColorado-based
BrewersAssociation.“Ifyouspotoneon
tap,order it.”The appeal, she believes,
is part industrywide obsession with
constantexperimentationandpartcon-
sumerdemandforfarm-to-bottlebrews.
While youmight assume this liter-
ally homegrown trend is popular only
among microbreweries, wilderness-
inspired beers are also capturing the
attention of bigger,more established
brands. New Belgium Brewing
Company, for example, released a
limited-edition plum-lavender bock
madewithproducts found around the
FortCollins,Colorado,property.And
Portland’sDeschutes Brewery won a
silvermedalattheGreatAmericanBeer
Festival forSageFight,madewithwild
juniperberriesandsagebrush leavescol-
lected in theOregonhighdesert.
There’sevenanewprogram,open to
thepublic,calledBeersMadebyWalk-
ing,which leads guidedhikes in cities
such asDenver and Seattle to gather
wild botanicals. In 2014, founderEric
Steen worked with 56 breweries to
createmore than60beers crafted from
foraged ingredients.
But not all ingredients foundon the
trail areasoddas,say,sagebrush.In fact,
ChrisHaas of SaltLakeCity’sDesert
EdgeBrewery turns tonature to source
abeer-making staple:wildhops.
“There are lots of interesting hop
varieties inUtah that aren’t commer-
cially available,” he says. The flavor
powerhousegrowswildonpublic lands
aroundthestate,andduringthesummer
months,self-described“hophead”Haas
fills a cargo vanwith the
foragedvines toproduce
1,000barrelsofbeer.
His flagship brew,
Radius, is made
exclusivelywith ingre-
dients found within
150milesof thebrew-
ery.Haashuntsforhops
forthesamereasonsother
brewershead intothewoodsfor
wildedibles.“Itmakesdamn
goodbeer,”he says.
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HAULOFTHEWILD
Gathering fresh
botanicalsat Scratch
BrewingCompany
in southern Illinois
AARONKLEIDON (FORAGING); KENDALLKARMANIAN (BEER)
