Wine and Lager Lovers Unite Over Elder Pine’s ‘Cleaver’

This month, we reached out to Paul Davidson of Elder Pine Brewing & Blending Co, and we got to talking about the versatility of beer vs. other brews. For Paul and his team, this includes the huge range of raw ingredients that spark their imaginations, which are often tied to narrative, terroir, experimentation… and whatever else sends them down an interesting path.

What’s the biggest inspiration for you right now? What’s keeping things fresh?

Researching and sourcing raw ingredients for modern representations of classic styles is most inspiring to me at this current point in my career.

More and more farmers and maltsters, particularly in Europe, are beginning to sow heirloom varieties of barley so modern brewers have access to the historic malts that initially defined the styles of beer we love. These heirloom varieties might not be the most efficient to grow, harvest, malt, or brew with, so it’s incredibly inspiring to see large farmers and maltsters put so much energy and passion into growing these types of barley for us to recreate a piece of brewing history.

Crisp and Weyermann are really leading the charge with commercially available heirloom varieties and they’ve all been fantastic to brew with. I personally believe that the UK and Continental Europe has the best climate and terroir for growing malting barley. Having access to these malts has led me to experimentation as well as trying my absolute best to recreate classic and historical styles.

Having Omega Yeast on our side for both experimentation and recreation has been incredible for production. Having such a large bank of classic yeast strains—on top of all the fun hybrids, kveik, Brett blends, and Thiolized® strains — is crucial for our eclectic product portfolio. Having access to everything we need from one yeast lab, including tons of helpful information and research via Top Crop, has led to better consistency and has proven to be a very valuable addition to our toolbox.

Using wine grape juice is typically what people associate with traditional oenobeer. You actually have a version of Cleaver that uses Phantasm, which is a grape-derived product. What do you think of oenobeer? What does it mean to you?

Oenobeer is fascinating and I really hope it catches on in a big way. We made a proper oenobeer a couple of years ago called Terrior Villein where I blended four barrels of oat saison that sat in pinot noir barrels for eleven months with 750 pounds of pinot noir grape must.

It all re-fermented together in stainless steel with additional Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus before being bottle conditioned to a prickly carbonation level of 3 vol/CO₂. I’ve been planning on making more oenobeer because it sold very well but I keep getting sidetracked with other projects and fun things like thiols.

We absolutely love Cleaver, which is one of your Thiolized lagers. You told us a little about how you were using thiols to build a bridge between your farm (and forest) brewery and the wine audience that you get out where you are. That really comes to life in what you’re doing with Cleaver.

I see thiols as an important tool to have when making oenobeer. The sheer amount of tropical and white wine characters that can be coaxed out of wort with an Omega Yeast Thiolized strain is almost unbelievable. Guava, grapefruit, passion fruit, and New Zealand sauvignon blanc characteristics run absolutely rampant in Thiolized fermentations with high thiol precursor content.

Since there are grape varieties available with high thiol precursor content, I’d love to see an oenobeer fermented with a Thiolized strain to really take it to another level.

Now I’m drooling and thinking about how it’s time to get that on our production schedule because our brewery is surrounded by wine drinkers that absolutely loved the oenobeer and Thiolized lagers that we’ve already released. Having the ability to unlock thiols during fermentation with Omega’s strains has really helped us convert the wine drinkers around us into regular consumers that truly enjoy beer.

Being able to serve someone a beer that has familiar characteristics to the wine they drink regularly has been crucial to expanding our loyal taproom customers.

You mentioned some of the other projects you’re working on, like blending and other techniques and ingredients that you’re bringing into the mix. What else are you looking into? What are some pro tips you could share?

Blending is very important when it comes to producing well-rounded barrel-aged sour/wild ales. Having such a wide range of wild yeasts and bacteria available through Omega Yeast has helped us win four gold and silver medals for various barrel-aged wild ales. Many brewers are terrified of acetic acid but acetic acid is very important for producing depth in sour beers.

My pro tip of the day is to leave a handful of barrels alone for the entire aging duration (e.g., do not top them off with more beer) to encourage acetic acid production for the sole purpose of blending. Having ​“acid beer” on hand is important to having an inclusive mixed-culture program. Certain blends will always benefit with extra lactic and/or acetic acid.

As for other fun processes or techniques, we are located on a 17 acre ex-Christmas tree farm so one of these days I’ll figure out how to harvest enough pine boughs for a 30bbl batch of Pine Saison. I’ve brewed a couple of five gallon batches and it’s mind-blowing how well fresh pine goes with saison!

Elder Pine brews and blends classic styles with a uniquely modern vision, all from their gorgeous property in Gaithersburg, Maryland.