A Close Kinship — How Distillers Look to Beer for Inspiration and Purpose

Springbank, in Campbeltown, Scotland, is an unusual distillery. It’s one of the very few Scotch whisky producers that still practices in-house malting. Barley is stored in a loft; when required, a portion of it is withdrawn, steeped in cool water, and left for about three days to swell. The grain is laid out on the distillery’s malting floors, where it is turned at regular intervals until the starches transform into fermentable sugars, and eventually it’s dried in a kiln. The malt is then milled and the resulting grist is transferred to the mash tun and mixed with hot water. The mashing process allows the malt’s sugars to disperse into the liquid. The newly created wort is then inoculated with yeast, which turns the raw ingredients into an alcoholic beverage.

If it sounds like I’m describing the process of brewing beer, well, you’re not far off.

Whisky, a mere alembic away from beer, is built from essentially the same base, except it’s unhopped and then distilled. The two share much of their production processes and history, while in other cultures, brewing and distilling enjoy even closer proximity. European breweries have been distilling beer eau de vie, bierbrand, beer brandy, bier schnapps, pivní pálenka and the likes for centuries, as a tool to prolong beer’s shelf life by concentrating the alcoholic component of any unused or stale excess. 

Today, the purpose of distilling beer differs from the past. No longer a tool of necessity, it’s now one more way for breweries to diversify their portfolios. Rogue Ales in Ashland, Oregon began experimenting with distillation in 2003, while Anchor Brewing set up an in-house distillery as early as 1993. The list of breweries-turned-distilleries is an ever-expanding one, and also includes the likes of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; New Holland Brewing Company in Holland, Michigan; and Adnams in Suffolk, England.

If breweries have been looking to spirits to add interest and excitement to their portfolios, however, a growing crowd of craft distillers is also turning towards modern beer for inspiration. The result? The brewing and distilling worlds are only getting closer—and less distinct from one another—than ever before.

TRADITION MEETS MODERNITY

Even while younger, modern breweries are now investing in distilling, many of those earlier traditions remain widely popular across Germany, Austria, Benelux, Switzerland, France, and elsewhere in Europe.

In Mozart’s hometown of Salzburg, for instance, Augustiner serves its Bräustübl guests an unaged, spirituous version of its regular Märzen, while Bamberg’s Schlenkerla offers a conventional white distillate alongside a golden-colored expression “aged” on smoked malt “for extra smokiness.” In Antwerp, Belgium, Het Anker boasts some of the most refined beer-based distillates available on the continent, made by concentrating the spirit of the brewery’s Gouden Carolus Tripel.

Now, newer European distilleries are looking to their brewer neighbors in turn. The Bottle Distillery launched six years ago in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. For owner Mark Migchels, the project meant reconnecting to Central Europe’s tradition of beer-brandy production. The distillery runs beer hailing from Stadsbrouwerij Eindhoven through its pot still to make two beer brandy expressions.

“The beer for the beer brandy is brewed [to our own recipe] by our former neighbors, Stadsbrouwerij Eindhoven. It took us a couple of times before we had the final recipe for the beer, which you can compare to a very strong Blonde Ale,” says Migchels.

In a departure from bierbrand tradition, the base beer isn’t available commercially, but The Bottle Distillery also make an expression from one of Stadsbrouwerij Eindhoven’s regular beers, a 5.1% Belgian-style Wheat Beer named after the old Philips headquarters building in the center of Eindhoven. “Besides our regular bierbrand, we made a second one from an existing beer, De Witte Dame. It’s a fresh Wheat Beer and the resulting spirit is much fresher with lots of citrus notes,” says Migchels.

There are many examples of such sharing and mutuality between brewers and distillers. Goose Island Beer Company’s annual Bourbon County releases have long been sought-after, and the wider barrel-aged category is a favorite of collectors. The success of such beers has led both large and micro distilleries to mirror the technique in a bid to appeal to new drinkers. Finished for a few months in beer barrels, the likes of Glen Grant Ale Cask, Glenfiddich IPA Experiment, and the Jameson’s Caskmate series are all perfectly mixable, albeit perhaps not quite so sippable, beer-influenced whiskies.

A NEW RELATIONSHIP

As experimentation increasingly drives the global craft spirit movement, the kinship among beer, whisky, and other spirits is entering a new phase. One of the United States’ leading modern distilleries, Seattle-based Westland, is at the forefront of the country’s single-malt movement, and partly owes its innovative mindset to the Pacific Northwest’s craft brewing scene.

“A lot of the things that we do differently from other distillers come from the fact that we are surrounded by brewers. Here in the Northwest, there is a very brewery-minded philosophy,” says director of operations Scott Sell. In its lookout for distinctive flavor profiles, Westland bypasses efficient and reliable distiller’s yeast (“M” type yeast)—which most traditional producers would rely on to carry out the fermentation—and opts to use Belgian Saison yeast instead. 

“One of the forgotten truths about distilling is that … when the M-style yeast was discovered and bred, most distilleries had their own Ale yeast that they used for fermentation,” says Sell. “The M-style is much more efficient. It’s clean, very fast, so you can get through to the distillation very quickly. But you lose a lot of flavor. That was one of the things that we specifically looked at when we first started the distillery, how yeast can really influence the flavor of the distillate … What makes a distillery different from a brewery? Why can’t a distiller do the same?”

At Westland, not only is Saison yeast employed to accentuate malt-derived aromas, it also produces the orange peel, baking spice, and cherry notes that Bell believes are the distillery’s signature, and that a neutral distiller’s yeast would never be capable of developing. “We specifically picked the Saison yeast because it gets a little bit funky, especially when it gets into the higher alcohol content during the fermentation,” he says.

Despite its positive aromatic performance, Saison yeast is less efficient than traditional distiller’s yeast, as it tends to ferment 2% to 3% ABV less than the expected 9% to 11% range. What the yeast lacks in efficiency, however, it makes up for in aroma. “Obviously we’re playing around a ton with different distillation practices, barrels, etc., but you always get that in-house style,” Sell says.

BEYOND WHISKEY

That attitude is familiar to avant-garde Danish distillery Empirical Spirits. There, too, flavor experimentation is a paramount goal. Co-founded by former Noma chef Lars Williams and Noma concept manager Mark Emil Hermansen in 2017, Empirical aptly describes itself as a “flavor company.” 

Empirical’s releases are—mostly—clear, unaged, new-make spirits, whose unique qualities stem from a meticulous study of the ingredients’ potential to create exceptional flavors. Williams and Hermansen’s approach speaks in fluent New Nordic vocabulary, yet shows clear signs of craft beer influence, too. The Plum, I Suppose, for instance, is a white distillate whose distinctive marzipan aromas are designed to mimic a dessert that Williams describes as “the best of all time.” As often happens in Nordic food preparations, this spirit is the result of “two very different ingredients [that] combine to form a third completely different expression,” with its aromatic profile originating from the use of plum kernels and marigold petals.

Alongside an avant-garde approach to botanical selection, Saison yeast is, here too, key to achieving distinctive aromas.

“We were lucky that we were friends with the head of research and development at [yeast and fermentation company] White Labs,” says Williams. “In fact, we actually shared the facility very early on, when we were trying to figure out production spaces.”

After an initial trial, which revealed that distiller’s yeast was not capable of creating the necessary complexity and aromatic nuances the Empirical team was after, Williams looked at alternatives that could allow him to use the fermentation stage as a flavor-generating playground. 

“People are starting to question the idea that you are just creating alcohol because the spirit is going to go in the barrel for five years, and that’s going to create all the aromas and soften up the spirit. Why isn’t the wash something that I shouldn’t be super proud of presenting to a customer? The maturation will presumably add something in the end but you wouldn’t try to make a beautiful sauce out of a shitty chicken stock. The fact that yeast makes alcohol is just a ‘happy bonus,’” he says with a chuckle.

The distillery had thousands of yeast strains to choose from, but the Saison strain appeared as the ideal candidate to enhance koji culture-derived aromas, which Williams was determined to integrate into his ferments after a stint at a saké brewery in Japan.

“Belgian Saison yeast is amazing because it’s so pungent, it’s a lot closer to wild yeast than a Lager strain, it has a little more genetic diversity and complexity, and for us it also is a bit of a workhorse,” says Williams. “It seems happy to be digesting a lot of different things, [and] marries really well with the koji profile.”

Using koji cultures—a type of fermentation starter of Japanese origins—adds a further, delicate step to the production process. It is also responsible for additional flavor complexity, and allows the Empirical team to use unmalted barley in the brewing process. The koji enzymes are capable of breaking down the starches into sugars, which can later be digested by the Saison yeast.

To ferment the koji barley, the distillery built a dedicated room that is kept at the required temperature (98.6°F, or 37°C) and humidity (70%) at all times. This allows the koji to ferment until it turns into a dense, pale-looking cake that, once diluted, can be used to brew the base beer.

LEARNING THE DARK ARTS

If many established whisky distilleries tend to think of yeast as a simple tool, they approach malt with the same offhandedness, seeing it as a mere source of fermentable sugars rather than a means to control the liquid’s aroma. Bouquet development is a job left to the barrel to resolve.

Traditional Scotch distillers, for instance, maintain that whisky gets as much as 70% of its flavor from the interaction with wood. In some instances, this might well be an underestimated figure. But by looking at how varying amounts of pale, chocolate, crystal, and other specialty malts affect a beer’s taste, some distillers are beginning to acknowledge that the same principle could—and perhaps should—be applied to making craft whisky.

“It’s probably all influenced by craft beer,” says Westland’s Sell. “[Flavor research] is something that craft breweries have been doing for decades while distilleries are only starting to recognize that a grain bill does affect the flavor of the wash and will eventually affect the flavor of the distillate, too. You can draw a parallel between Budweiser or Coors and the wash of a [conventional] distillery—they’re just looking at the grain bill as a commodity. If we use a diverse range of malts then of course we’re going to see all these different flavors in our new make as well.”

Dark beers, and the darker specialty malts used in their recipes, seem to be particularly appealing to distillers. Darker malts can help lift a whisky’s palate or benefit the liquid with a more lingering finish. Most importantly, they may impart distinctive roasted, coffee, and cocoa notes which would normally only derive from a lengthy interaction with the wood, thus enhancing a younger spirit’s bouquet.

In Alberta, Canada, GrainHenge’s Meeting Creek Single Malt Whisky is inspired by a beer made by sister brewery Troubled Monk, Open Road American Brown Ale. Its grain bill features amber, crystal, brown, and chocolate malts. 

Seattle’s Westland went down a similar route: “In our flagship Single Malt we use different malts: Washington Select Pale Malt; Munich malt; extra special malt; pale chocolate malt; brown malt; Bairds Heavily Peated Malt. Part of the grain bill is similar to what you would find in a Porter,” says Sell. “Using different varieties of malt [is the result of] an exploration of the growing culture of barley in the Pacific Northwest. There are a lot of breweries in the Seattle area that are looking for hyper-local maltsters in order to source the malt from the same region where they’re making their beer.”

Interest in darker malts is also growing on the other side of the Atlantic. The work of Tim Massey, former director of English Lager brewery Freedom, provides empirical evidence of dark malt’s potential to enhance a distillate’s flavor. As part of his recently launched Beer Barrel Distillery project, he contract-distilled an Imperial Stout on behalf of Northern Monk in Leeds. The distillate sold out in one day. It is described as an amped-up version of its base beer, showing aromas of brown sugar, vanilla, cacao and tobacco, and a mild sweetness.

Meanwhile, chemistry graduate and Scotch enthusiast Rutele Marciulionyte has been experimenting with dark malts as part of her PhD program at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. Marciulionyte’s work suggests that, although dark malts may lead to a reduced alcohol yield in the distilled liquid, they contribute to a substantial increase in concentration of volatile aroma compounds, i.e. complexity. Her research could have revolutionary implications in a country that, when it comes to whisky grain bills, still tends to adopt a rather conservative approach.

BEER’S YOUNGEST INGREDIENT

While Massey admits that the profile of a beer’s malt flavors is paramount to achieving a high-quality spirit, he is committed to developing a brand new category of “botanical bierbrand” primarily focused on championing hop aromas. “If you think of the wash, it’s the same as a spirits wash, but with hops in it. But how do you get those hops to carry through in distillation? It took us about 18 months to develop the technology,” he says. “The way our still is constructed, and the way we operate it, is that it allows us to capture the hops. And we’re experimenting by adding more hops, almost like a gin basket into the still.”

IPAs are ideal candidates for Massey to reach his goals. Unsurprisingly, a distilled IPA from Welsh brewery Purple Moose was Beer Barrel Distillery’s first success story.

“I must admit I was a bit skeptical at first,” says Purple Moose’s owner Lawrence Washington. “‘Um, distilled beer?’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’ But when I tasted the samples they had brought along I was really impressed. All the qualities of a good whisky, but enhanced by hop aromas coming through very prominently. They talked about the strength that works for them in terms of the return that you get on the distillation, so we used our 5.2% IPA. They also took the hops that we use and added them to the distillate.”

Meanwhile Northern Monk’s second release involved a 10% dry-hopped Triple IPA. To make the spirit, Massey got his hands on some of the hops featured in the beer’s recipe (Citra, Idaho 7, Strata, and Mosaic) and used them during the distillation, resulting in a one-of-a-kind spirit displaying characteristic passion fruit, melon, and lime aromas.

“Tim tried with an Imperial Stout first sometime last year,” says Northern Monk’s co-founder Brian Dickinson. “Generally a higher ABV is a good starting point, because there is more flavor to transfer over. Next we did an IPA, just to see how it works. We used our 10% Triple New England IPA. We would normally dry-hop that one. Instead, we gave the hops to Tim who added them later and used them as botanicals during the distillation.”

Massey’s innovative Beer Barrel Distillery project, Westland’s pioneering soul, and Empirical’s avant-garde vision show the degree to which modern craft beer is contributing to a flavor revolution within the spirits world.

“Craft distilling has definitely been influenced by the craft beer world, a place that we looked at for inspiration when we founded Empirical Spirits,” says Williams. “We saw how beer had revolutionized the way people interacted with flavors and it was mind-blowing. The idea that there could be a better and more interesting alternative [to conventional] beverages, to the status quo, was really inspiring.”

Words by Jacopo Mazzeo
Illustrations by Colette Holston