Vineyard brews: Exploring the world of grape ales

In their popular versions, beer and wine are beverages that compete for similar consumers and drinking moments. However, they are different in their very essence and in the way we see and experience them today. Wine carries the cultural aura of an agricultural product that comes from a particular territory. The idea of ‘terroir’ as a sum of the agricultural milieu, the climate and the practices of growing and winemaking is fascinating and, in recent decades, natural has become the mantra. The most radical message nowadays is that wine is made in the vineyard and with ‘minimum intervention’ in the winery, merely monitoring spontaneous fermentations and guiding nature without interference.

Beer has not developed such a sense of origin. You could even say that it is the opposite, sheer intervention. It is defined by its 'style', a complex concept that defines its appearance, aromas, body, balance, alcohol content, carbonation, brewing methods and ingredients. Malts, hops and yeasts from different origins travel the world and are combined in creative processes reminiscent of international cuisine. Changes in temperature, pH and pressure are constantly monitored, following the science of the moment - pick up an advanced brewing manual today and you might wonder if you're looking at a 'molecular' cookbook!

Physical terroir is less important. Whereas wine is about geology, agriculture and geography, beer is about historical events and social movements. This is popular culture: styles are rooted in a place and time. The dark porters of Dickens' London and the First Industrial Revolution are a by-product of that society, as are the blonde lagers that emerged in Central Europe with the Second Industrial Revolution. They have evolved over the centuries, but they are still there. Their simplification and globalisation are very much a thing of the late 20th century.

Small things matter

Today, 99% of beer production is highly industrialised. While brands may compete like local football teams, their discrete and standardised sensory profiles, widely accepted as social alcoholic refreshment, place them at the lower end of the quality scale. But if we focus on the so-called 'craft' segment of the market - the 1% that counts for this story, the R&D -, there is plenty of creativity to be found. Craft brewers are reinterpreting historic styles with modern techniques and sensibilities in a very diverse repertoire, with new ranges developing at an exponential rate regardless of vintages. Some even draw inspiration from the vineyards.

Grape ales are one of the latest styles to emerge alongside the winemaking revolution at the end of the 20th century. The pioneering beers are called ‘Italian' in honour of the country that did most to develop and promote them. In truth, however, the first of this style was Vigneronne at the Brasserie Cantillon in Brussels, where Jean-Pierre Van Roy began experimenting with Muscat grapes in 1973. Unlike Germany, where the Purity Law of 1516 lists the ingredients allowed for brewing - grain malt, water, hops and yeast - Belgium allows more freedom to experiment with ingredients and keep old styles alive. One of these is the tart, spontaneously fermented lambics that Cantillon has been brewing since 1900 in oak barrels, where they spend years and include a variety of fruits and grapes. Today, this school has a strong following, including 3 Fonteinen and Tilquin, whose lambics are made with almost all the famous grape varieties.

The Italian exception

The seed was planted by a few Italian brewers who had fallen in love with Belgium's rich brewing heritage. The young Teo Musso had founded his brewery, Birrificio Baladin, in the early 1990s in Piozzo, a small village in the Langhe region of Piedmont. Between 1999 and 2001, he embarked on what he calls "the Perbacco experiment": beers made with Nebbiolo and Dolcetto musts from his father's vineyards. They were sold only at the Musso estate and he eventually decided to withdraw them from the market. "I felt that I was betraying my father, making an insulting joke of the wine business, which looked down on us." Nonetheless, they went down in history as the first Italian Grape Ales and inspired other brewers. Today, more than 100 Italian houses make them.

Nicola Perra founded his microbrewery, Birrificio Barley, in Sardinia in 2006. His family owned a small vineyard and he had turned his attention to a traditional local product: sapa, a thick, sweet syrup made by boiling must for a whole day. He added it to his first beer, BB10, which was an instant hit with local aficionados and was followed by others that included sapas from various grape varieties. “I had been using a blend of white sapas for a while,” he says, "but I saw the light with one made only from red Garnacha." Soon came BB9 with Malvasía, BBEvò with Vermentino, Arrivescia with Cariñena or BB6, which for the first time included a fresh Malvasía must. Perra says that he brews only in stainless steel tanks, using different techniques depending on the characteristics of the grapes and combining different yeasts. "These beers develop their personality as a result of the production process." They are not wines, nor do they intend to be.

A complex fusion

Brewing yeasts are selected from the original sites where these styles were born. They have a strong influence on their sensory repertoire, which is fairly predictable if the materials and processes are appropriate. But let the wild fruit ferments in, and the result is likely to be more surprising and fun. 

The next step was to ferment with the wild yeasts of the grapes to create a style that aficionados would find hard to distinguish from a natural cider or pet-nat. With these yeasts comes the terroir, or part of it, but also microorganisms that are considered inappropriate in formal winemaking, such as acetic acid bacteria and brettanomyces, which are welcome in spontaneously fermented beers. In fact, the interaction of brett with hops is very interesting – it can modify their fruity aromas in very creative and unique ways, while still providing the distinctive earthiness and barnyard rusticity that is sought after in some styles and defined as 'funky' in the brewing scene.

Valter Loverier, also from Piedmont, is the man behind the LoverBeer brand. He describes his beers, which he has been brewing since 2009, as "wild by nature". His BeerBera is made from Barbera grape must, while the hard-to-find Nebiulin-a uses Nebbiolo from the La Morra grand cru in Barolo, and combines three different vintages of oak-aged beers in each cuvée. This concept has been adopted by others, such as Siemàn, the project of brothers Marco and Daniele - both sommeliers - and Andrea Filippini, a trained home brewer, in Padua (Veneto). They started making wine in 2016 from a small vineyard they had bought, and later set up a small building nearby as a micro-factory "specialising in spontaneously fermented beers - wild, in other words". Their philosophy is, above all, to respect nature. "We don't use any chemicals, only indigenous yeasts. The result is always beers with a distinctive acidity that develops naturally."

Mix-and-match

Not all beers share this love of acidity and wildness. On a sensory level, these beers combine the fruity nuances of the grapes and the hops; it's not just a matter of combining musts, but of combining sensitivities. It is also essential to integrate the acidity of the fruit into the character of the beer, as it can clash with the bitterness. It is common to add hot grape juice to render the yeasts inert, or to combine the two musts at different stages of fermentation so that the alcohol already produced acts as a protection against some microorganisms. The style is practically experimental, so there is room for just about anything. 

Its recognition and definition - more or less official - comes from a private institution in the US, the Beer Judge Certification Program or BJCP, which trains judges for tasting competitions and regularly publishes and updates a comprehensive guide to over 100 beer styles. This is the entry for Grape Ale: "Originally an Italian style, it has inspired brewers in wine regions around the world to make their own versions using local varieties. The grape must should be between 15 and 20% of the total, ''but it can be more than 40%.'' Finished wines and beers can never be mixed. Colour is free, but the 2021 update states that they must not be cloudy or 'funky', although this could change in the near future, given the current state of affairs.

The 2010s take-off

The BJCP's recognition put the new style in the spotlight for brewers in virtually every region with vineyards, and Spain was no exception. The local pioneers were not so much followers of the Italian school as small, restless brewers, with close ties to the vineyards through proximity, friendship or family.

The first Spanish grape ales, back in 2011-2012, were Catalan: Moska Garnatxa Beer, Barrica Merlot and Septembre Nadal with Moscatel from Ales Agullons, Viña Hop from Cervezas Marina, Vinyablond from Guineu (with Garnacha Blanca and Macabeo)...

The exception was brewer Jesús Medina, from La Mancha, with his Vendimia 2012. His family had a small bodega in Santa Cruz de la Zarza (Toledo) where, as a child, he sometimes helped out. Inspiration came shortly after he opened his small brewery next to the village cooperative. "At harvest time, trailers of grapes passed in front of the factory so I thought it might be a good idea to blend the two musts. To combine two traditional products of La Mancha, grain and grapes, in a beer with some of the characteristics of wine", says Medina, who started experimenting with 10% Airén. “Even so, its influence was evident in the beer, bringing it closer to a sparkling wine. I kept innovating every year, changing the fermenting yeast.” The Medina brewery also produced three vintages of Grape Ale Garnacha, which I helped to create. It included biodynamic must and wild yeasts from Las Moradas de San Martín, in Gredos. 

Other wineries, such as Alta Alella near Barcelona and Soto Manrique in Gredos, also make their own grape ales in partnership with microbrewers.

Terroir all around

The trend is towards spontaneity, acid styles and funky notes that bring these beers closer to the natural wine universe. There are some exciting projects, such as Cyclic Beer Farm, a Barcelona-based brewery founded in 2016. Starting with the first Saison yeast strains, they have developed their own ferments, which they consistently grow and reuse. According to their website, they work in harmony with the seasons of the year. "We nourish our beers with a variety of fruits, herbs and flowers. Some we grow ourselves on the family farm in Alt Empordà, while the rest comes from small local growers, always organic". They confess to being passionate about traditional wine, "as it was made before it was industrialised." Cyclic Beer Farm work in partnership with winemaker friends and, since 2018, have also been making their own wines. "We are always experimenting; as our knowledge and experience grows, we continue to push the boundaries of our processes and combinations of ingredients, with the aim of expressing 'terroir' in our fermentations."

However, if anyone has taken terroirism to the extreme, it is the couple formed by Quiònia Pujol and Óscar Mogilnicki, who created the first ‘Granja Cervecera’: Lo Vilot. Some of their labels are made with white and red musts and yeasts from the vineyards of Almacelles, their village in Lleida, where they grow their own organic hops and malted grains.

Vineyard beers are a voyage of discovery, an adventure that the Lombardy brewery Birrificio Italiano sums up nicely on the website of its Klanbarrique project. "One brewer, two winemakers, the birth of a borderland. Champagne-style or barrel-aged, irreverent, out of the box, sometimes extreme: our ales are a melting pot where wine and beer come together in a celebration of the wild power of Nature and a sublimation of alchemical experimentation."

Some cool breweries to follow

Here is a small personal selection of producers worth following. All of them experiment with and ferment various fruits in addition to grapes (or their skins). I don't mention too many brands because the experimental nature of the style dictates very short, occasional and unstable releases on the market. However, this fact also favours the emergence of novelties and a quick evolution, almost by natural selection.

They are not easy to find, so the best place to buy them is in specialist shops, from their website or direct from the factory. Most come in 75cl bottles and some have a sparkling wine cork, although the metal cap is still a distinctive feature. Prices are reasonable and, although their evolution in bottle can be unpredictable, the acidic ones can provide pleasant surprises for a few years. They are best enjoyed in a wine glass and should be no colder than an ancestral sparkling wine or equivalent.
Meta Edabeak in Astigarraga, Gipuzkoa. They work in partnership with other breweries and natural winemakers in their area. They do a lot of experimenting with the skins of different varieties for other styles.

Cervezas Espiga, in the heart of Penedès. Different partnerships with grape growers, with and without oak, and even an IPA with Xarel.lo.

Cervezas Máger, also in Catalonia. Wide range of products made with local grape varieties from small artisan vignerons.

La Quince (Madrid) and Mala Gissona (Gipuzkoa) with the range Txak-Or-Lee. Various base styles enhanced with Hondarrabi Zuri must.

Laugar Wild Nation in Bizkaia. Very fond of using barrels of different wines and spontaneous fermentations. 

SanFrutos in Segovia. Brothers Adrián and Mateo Sanz have partnered with vigneron Ismael Gozalo (MicroBio Wines) for their Resistencia Espontánea, a grape ale with Verdejo and a Nieva flavour.