The old adage, “Beer before liquor…” may need an update. In the craft beverage market today, distillers and brewers are working together in increasingly more inventive ways. Historically, the two professions have seen little crossover. Just a few years ago, the only interaction between these two producers was typically seasonal barrel-aged beers where brewers rarely—if ever—met the distiller.
This distance is somewhat perplexing, particularly when one considers that the essential ingredients of water, malt and yeast are the same for brewing and the majority of artisan distilling – particularly whisk(e)y.
One of the first shifts came in 2003 when Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales added a distillery to their Milton, Delaware brewery. The spirits produced were small-batch and, for the better part of 13 years, only available in the taproom. By that time, other brewers, such as Ballast Point in San Diego and Oregon’s Rogue Ales, had also added spirits to their portfolio.
However, smaller operations were slow to add spirits or beer to their already existing lineup, preferring to “stay in their lane,” as the communities weren’t that interested in crossing over into the other’s territory.
One of the exceptions was Corsair Artisan Distillery in Nashville, Tennessee, which began as a small-scale distillery in January 2008 and added a brewery program about four years ago. Head Distiller Colton Weinstein says their success (they currently distribute in 40 states and eight different countries) is partially due to timing. “We got in at the beginning of the second wind of craft distilling [right when] Tennessee had just passed the distilling law,” said Weinstein.
In 2009, Tennessee expanded the number of counties where distilling was legal from three to 44. That meant smaller distillers like Corsair were on the same legal footing as Jack Daniels. That didn’t mean that brewing would necessarily become part of every distiller’s operation. “We’re a little unique in how we do our mash, in that we lauter,” Weinstein said. “We have two systems: one that is geared towards corn-based [mash] and one that is malt-based.”
Corn whiskey—and its Kentucky cousin, bourbon—creates a mash that while similar to, cannot be used to make wort, the basis for both beer and malt whiskey. For now, that limits Corsair to only offering their brews in the taproom. Aside from different ingredients, regulations also vary from state to state. Whereas Corsair was able to add a brewery to its distillery with minimal hassle, Dogfish Head faced a conundrum. Laws in Delaware dictate that a brewery cannot share a wall with a distillery (they got around the law by putting the distillery on a different story of the building).
Delaware’s laws are hardly the only ones making brewery-distillery operations challenging to develop. Many states make distilling in a brewery, or vice versa, so onerous that the businesses often must be housed in different buildings (or even cities) altogether. Rogue Ales & Spirits has been forced to make their two brands – Rogue Ales and Rogue Spirits – into separate entities altogether. They were lucky. That just isn’t practical for most producers who are working with limited space and on a limited budget.
In Brooklyn, New York, Interboro Spirits & Ales became the city’s very first joint brewery-distillery. Co-owner and distiller Laura Dierks learned from one of her first jobs how advantageous it could be for a distillery to have connections to a brewery. While working at Van Brunt Stillhouse in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, they often sourced mash or wort from Sixpoint Ales, the brewery just around the corner.“If it’s just a transfer of wort, we don’t have to deal with the grains,” Dierks said, but that wasn’t her long-term vision. “If you have all that [distilling] equipment, why not make beer, too?” That seed planted, she found a common “spirit” with brewer Jesse Ferguson, who was open to the idea of a joint operation.
The real obstacle to moving forward in the plan was figuring out whether or not a joint facility could open in New York State. While each state may dictate what is and is not permitted in such an operation, sometimes the state laws and the federal laws come into conflict. To a certain extent, this worked to Interboro’s advantage. “The feds didn’t have any problems [with the joint operation] so long as the state didn’t,” Dierks said. “The state said the same.”
So she got everything in writing and in September 2016, the brewery-distillery opened in the city’s trendy Williamsburg neighborhood. “The bottom line? The only difference between our products is ABV and regulations.”
These difficulties may explain why separate distilleries and breweries are still working on collaborations rather than wholesale changes to their operations. One of the more significant projects is Jameson’s worldwide “Drinking Buddies” program, where select American breweries are given Jameson whiskey barrels to age beer, which are then shipped back to the Midleton, Ireland, facility to age whiskey. “This idea of collaboration between Jameson and craft breweries originates back in Ireland in our own neighborhood where we worked with a local craft brewery to create a Jameson barrel-aged beer. [This] subsequently resulted in the creation of Jameson Caskmates, a whiskey finished in those same craft beer barrels,” Jameson Brand Ambassador Garey Feeney told Beverage Master. The Caskmates effort eventually evolved into “Drinking Buddies.”
One of “Drinking Buddies” first participants was
KelSo Beer Company, a Brooklyn-based brewery, who offered the first American Jameson barrel-aged pale ale in 2014. Brewer Kelly Taylor explains the nuance of aging beer in oak barrels. “Not only does [the beer] take in the flavor of whatever beverage was in there before, but it also matures and breathes, much as whiskey does.”
The Drinking Buddies program has now expanded to 23 breweries in 16 different states. Fulton Brewery, in Minneapolis, Minnesota had rarely worked directly with a distillery before working with Jameson.“We have barrel-aged many of our beers before,” said Tucker Gerrick, Fulton’s Director of Marketing. “Most of the time we get barrels from broker groups that are providing barrels by type of spirit aged, more so than a specific brand of spirit. In the case of our collaboration with Jameson, the scope is much greater than just the barrel-aged beer. We’re partnering on a number of things from point of sale, events, media creation and more. Jameson is super committed to being present in our local neighborhood and has leaned on us to help them connect with them beyond this partnership.”
These types of collaborations are likely the future of production. Andrew Godley, founder and brewmaster of Parish Brewing Co. in Broussard, Louisiana, thinks this is just the beginning. “With the growth of high-end craft beer around the world, more and more demand for barrel-aged beers is inevitable,” said Godley. “Speaking for Parish, I know that we would barrel-age all of our stronger beers—over 10% ABV—if we had the space and the ability to secure the barrels needed to do so.”
Anna Oliver, Marketing Manager at Revolution Brewing in Chicago, Illinois concurs. “Revolution believes that there is a bright future for brewery and distillery collaborations,” said Oliver. “This type of program is not limited to barrel sharing only, but it paves the way for creative opportunity through special local neighborhood events, the development of beer/cocktail menus, and helping to bridge the gap between dedicated drinkers on both the craft beer and whiskey side.”