The Sweet Taste of Collaboration
Posted on: Friday, 21 March 2008, 12:00 CDT
By MATT WICKENHEISER Staff Writer
Peak Organic's first seasonal brew, a maple oat ale, is surprisingly complex.
Not the taste - though there's a nice blend of flavors that don't overwhelm each other. The complexity comes in the collaboration behind the ale and the socially conscious objectives its creative partners are working toward.
Peak Organic of Portland created the beer working with Brownfield- based granola and nuts company GrandyOats and Butternut Mountain Farm in Vermont. The three small, organic-centric companies worked together to determine what sort of seasonal beer they wanted to make, what the rations of grains should be in the brew and what sort of sweetness they were going for.
The final all-organic brew boasts maple syrup from Butternut Mountain and GrandyOats' organic oats from a farm in Houlton, in Aroostook County.
The beer is an example of how small companies in a niche - in this case, organics - can work together on a product that enables cross-branding to a target audience, without competing against each other.
And on a global level, it's a case of how even small companies can look at their own practices and attempt to make progress on global problems, according to John Cadoux, Peak's founder.
Cadoux said while consumers are often passionate about buying local brews, the ingredients in those beverages often have to be sourced globally. When Peak started to look at its supply chain, it realized it was creating a huge carbon footprint as it shipped in organic ingredients from around the world. A carbon footprint is essentially a measure of how your actions impact the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in carbon dioxide. Actions can include things like shipping cargo, running machines or heating homes.
So Peak looked at its recipes to find organics ingredients it could get within 150 miles. When the company was first formed in 2006, its representatives met with some other local companies that were working on environmental sustainability, including GrandyOats. That company's partners, Nat Peirce and Aaron Anker, brought up the idea of an oatmeal stout.
But Peak was just starting to get its main brews up and running - an amber ale, a nut brown and a pale ale. It did not take the Brownfield granola guys up on their idea right away.
As the company started thinking more about its footprint, Cadoux said, it decided to go with a seasonal that would use local ingredients. The result was the maple oat.
"We're proud of it. Yeah, it's organic and we're committed to that forever, but it's sort of our first step into sourcing locally - which is pretty innovative for beer," said Cadoux.
Cadoux said that his company went with organic primarily because he thought the taste of the ingredients was better than nonorganic. Similarly, while the company is trying to be responsible with local sourcing, the ingredients are fresher when they come from nearby producers.
"You get it in the beer, there's that flavor component," said Cadoux.
Anker said that GrandyOats had originally wanted to use the Houlton farm's oats in their granola. But the type of oats, and the dry milling process (which retained more vitamins than wet milling) gave the grain a different flavor. GrandyOats didn't want to mess with its 29-year-old granola formula, so it chose not to use the oats. But the company did begin selling the oats in stores for oatmeal, baking, cooking and other uses.
Having the grains in the Peak beer is just another way to support organic farming in Maine, said Anker.
"Local to us just makes sense; we use local businesses, and of course ingredients whenever we can," said Anker. "We do it to help the economy, reduce our carbon footprint, but we do it mostly because we love Maine and feel we should do as much as we can here."
And, said Anker, brewing a beer is something he and Peirce have long wanted to do.
The first batch of beer has been "flying," said Geoff Masland, regional sales/marketing manager at Peak. They started working on the recipe last fall and bottled the first production batch in the last week of February. The equivalent of 48,000, 12-ounce bottles have been distributed in stores in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, said Masland. They bottled the second run this week.
The brew has used 1,250 pounds of Maine oats to date, said Anker.
Anker said GrandyOats has been promoting the beer for months. The beer has both GrandyOats and Butternut Mountain Farm featured prominently on the labels and packaging. All three companies are aimed at an organics-conscious audience; the cross promotion is a benefit to each of them.
Anker said he's working with some stores to display the beer alongside GrandyOats' nuts (garlic herb cashews, or roasted almonds with sea salt, for instance), to further drive that marketing.
"It's exciting for a guy selling granola and nuts to have something different to talk about," said Anker.
The beer was launched locally this week at a small event at Slainte Wine Bar and Lounge on Preble Street in Portland.
"I'm a big beer drinker," said James Kerwin, on vacation in Portland from Waltham, Mass. "I liked it instantly."
Kerwin said the fact the beer is organic didn't matter that much to him, but "it's an added benefit."
Keith Costello, a writer from Westbrook, said he tended to favor crisp, cold beers. The maple oat, served slightly warmer, was very good, he said.
"For a guy that doesn't drink microbrews, it was definitely a welcome treat," said Costello, "and I will have it again."
Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at:
mwickenheiser@pressherald.com
(c) 2008 Portland Press Herald. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Portland Press Herald
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