The craft brewing community is an interesting bunch, made up of strikingly unique and fiercely independent people. Despite this, and the highly competitive beer industry, craft brewers have an unbelievable desire to help each other. Case in point, the barrel known as PH1—one of the original wine barrels of New Belgium Brewing Co.’s barrel program.
PH1 was integral in the development of New Belgium’s sour and barrel-aged program which helped to create La Folie—a beer I personally count as the single beer that sparked my love affair with sours—along with others like La Terroir and Eric’s Ale.
Unfortunately, this single barrel went missing for many years in Fort Collins, Colo., but was later discovered in a competing brewery thousands of miles away in California.
“During a tour of the California brewery, New Belgium pilot brewer Cody Reif noticed what he thought was a familiar barrel,” writes the NBB blog, “He pointed it out to [Lauren] Salazar, and, sure enough, it was pH1, continuing its adventure as a beer barrel at one of the country’s most prolific Belgian-inspired sour beer makers.”
As it turns out, PH1 arrived in California, not through a clandestine heist, rather, “it was New Belgium’s brewmaster Peter Bouckaert who quietly gave the barrel to Russian River’s Vinnie Cilurzo as a gift.”
PH1 then helped to work its magic in Santa Rosa to create other, highly influential sour beers in the U.S. craft beer movement, like Beatification. That was until Russian River re-gifted the barrel back to New Belgium earlier this year.
But a gift is not a gift unless it’s given away, so PH1 was able to touch still another brewery this year when it arrived at The Rare Barrel.
“Berkeley’s The Rare Barrel visited [New Belgium] to create a sour beer collaboration, and chose pH1 as the cornerstone sour for the blend,” explains the NBB blog, “The collaboration, called Err on the Side of Awesome, was blended and shipped back to California for its special release. But the real treat came just this last week, when a new delivery showed up at The Rare Barrel: pH1 itself.”
Try and name another industry where competitive advantages are just given away as gifts. As the stakes in the beer industry continue to rise, and many point to business decisions as a sign that the craft beer industry has changed, I believe that some things remain the same—brewer helping brewer, sharing techniques and precious competitive advantages.
The composition of PH1 can never be duplicated. The combination of wood and micro flora that has resided in it to create La Folie and Beatification makes it a once and a lifetime brewing element. What would you do with such a valuable tool? If you’re New Belgium, you’d probably share it with your friends.
Read the entire story on PH 1 at the New Belgium Blog.
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