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| | BEACH BEERS WINE COCKTAILS WINES | FLOATS | ALPINE SORBET BOOZY IMPERIAL STOUT GRAPE SODAS | SwEll ZonE Allard Gary page: facing Company; Brewing Pelican page: This BREWERIES FIND SUN-DRENCHED SUCCESS BY THE BEACH.

Story by JOSHUA M. BERNSTEIN Opposite: The beach in front of Pelican Brewing Company in Pacific City, Oregon. This page: Dum Dum American IPA (front) and Absolutely! American Red Ale at Bagby Beer Company in Oceanside, California.

july/august 2019 ~ imbibemagazine.com 51 Commonwealth Brewing in Virginia Beach, Virginia. This photo: Owner and brewer Jeramy Biggie.

52 imbibemagazine.com ~ july/august 2019 PACKING FOR A DAY AT THE BEACH ISN’T ALWAYS A DAY AT THE BEACH. You need sunscreen and folding chairs, blankets the laid-back lifestyle. “Tere was a tight-knit com- and books, food and maybe a Frisbee, and let’s not munity of people that love to get together and get overlook umbrellas and cold beer. Commonwealth out on the water,” he says. Engineering took him Brewing, situated a slow 10-minute stroll from the away to northern Virginia, where he started home- soft sands of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia Beach, brewing, Virginia Beach never sailing far from his Virginia, makes sure no coolers arrive empty. mind. “I always thought it would be a great place On weekends, the brewery’s doors open at 11 to open [a brewery],” Biggie says. a.m., enticing the armada of families, couples and Upon his petitioning, the city gave him the go- friends to park their wagons and pop inside the ahead to convert the old fre station into Com- former Chesapeake Beach Fire & Rescue Station monwealth Brewing, which opened on Labor Day No. 4, all weathered wood and warm sunlight. weekend 2015. Like a fast-moving submarine, Tey grab four-packs of the brewery’s sought- it’s been full speed ahead ever since. “Right now, after hazy IPAs, facilitating surfside fun and re- we’re probably the only brewery in the state, if peat business at Commonwealth—often during not the whole country, that uses valet parking on the same day. “When they’re done at the beach weekends,” Biggie says. they’ll come back and have a few pints or make Sales for the brewery’s lagers, Belgian-style a night of it,” says owner and brewer Jeramy Big- beers and juicy IPAs have been so berserk that gie. “You get people on the way there, then you Commonwealth expanded this year by buying ev- get them on the way back.” ery building on its block, including small residen- Beer and the beach have always been good tial homes that’ll be torn down and transformed buddies. As the sun casts rays, a crisp sip of beer into needed parking. Even with extra square removes salt from parched lips, refreshment footage, Commonwealth still can’t make enough served in a koozie. You don’t think much of beach beer. “We have a demand that exceeds our abil- beer until it’s missing, the cooler barren and ity to produce the beer, even in the slow season,” your mind topped of with a thought: Where’s he says. “During the summer, the supply-demand the beer? Restocking once meant running to the gap grows even larger.” closest grocery or convenience store and buying Summer is eternal in the Florida Keys, a strand Mexican imports (remember the limes!) or light of tropical islands that extend some 120 miles lagers, likely made by some distant industrial from Florida’s southern edge, terminating in Key brewery. Now, beachgoers can take in the crash- West. During college, Tyrone Bradley started trav- ing waves while crushing cold ones brewed near eling to the Keys with buddies from Florida Atlan- their preferred patch of sand. tic University, catching fsh and a business oppor- A brewery near a beach is a diferent beast tunity. “All the craft beer on the market was too than one planted in an old factory or industrial heavy and hoppy and dark for us,” Bradley says. park. Brewery owners must balance the break- “We were drinking mainstream beers because neck production demands of high season’s fun in there were no craft beers that we could drink all the sun with the doldrums of winter and drizzly day fshing. Tey didn’t match our lifestyle.” afternoons, keeping anxious eyes on the Weather In spring 2014, Bradley and friends founded Is- Channel for hurricanes that could wash busi- lamorada Beer Company, named after the village ness away. Some breweries embrace the coastal of four islands famed for sportfshing. “Our focus abundance to brew beer with local sea salt, beach is the island-lifestyle beers—sessionable, easy- plums and seaweed, while others seek inspira- drinking, fun-in-the-sun beers,” Bradley says. None tion from their beach surroundings. of Islamorada’s packaged beers, including the No Wake Zone blonde ale favored with coconut and key lime, are stronger than 6 percent ABV. Tough a stout or two have made the brewery’s tap list, Sun’s Out, Fun’s In Islamorada skews toward brews that jive with weekend boat rides to a popular gathering spot Opening a brewery by the beach requires, frst and on a sandbar. “You sit in pristine waist-deep water foremost, a ferce afection for the sand, water and and drink beer all day,” Bradley says. To comple- weather. Commonwealth’s Biggie arrived in Vir- ment the occasion, the brewery created Sandbar All photos: Kate Thompson Kate photos: All ginia Beach right out of college, working hard as a Sunday, a pleasantly low-alcohol wheat ale suited nuclear submarine engineer and easily ftting into for sipping ’til sunset.

july/august 2019 ~ imbibemagazine.com 53 Te beach lifestyle isn’t just about the water, shine to beach plums, which fourish in the san- says Jef Bagby, the head brewer and an owner of dy seaside. Te tart purple fruit star in the invig- Bagby Beer Company, located in Oceanside, Cali- orating, pink-tinted Beach Plum Gose, fnished fornia, about 40 miles north of San Diego. “On the with seaweed and locally harvested sea salt. coast here, it’s an active spot,” he says. “People are Te savory seasonings have become go-tos running, swimming, riding, surfng, skating—all in numerous beers including Macho Muchacho, those outdoor things that really go with beer.” a Mexican-style lager favored with lime zest Te California native grew up in beachy En- and sea salt, and the small-batch Prop Stopper cinitas and was formerly the head of brewpub op- Seaweed IPA that earned its salinity from kom- erations for four locations of Pizza Port, a chainlet bu and kelp. “Salt does really cool things with of shore-adjacent brewpubs with a hang-ten vibe, hop bitterness,” Stoneburg says. “Tat chloride and the head brewer at the Carlsbad branch. Bag- ion can block bitterness receptors on your by, who’s one of America’s most medaled brewers, tongue, so the perception of bitterness from selected Oceanside as his brewery’s home partly the hop compounds might not be as strong due to the town’s potential. “Oceanside hadn’t or sharp.” been fully developed yet,” Bagby says. In 2014, he con- “IT’S ABOUT BEING OPEN TO ALL YOUR verted a midcentury BMW dealership into a sunny, spacious two- SENSES WHEN YOU’RE OUT BY THE BEACH,” story brewpub and —BLUE POINT BREWMASTER MIKE STONEBURG beer garden that seam- lessly transitions from indoor to outdoor, windows rolling up to welcome For beach breweries, creative whims can also salty breezes and customers, whether they're in come from human razzle-dazzle. To which I say, fip-fops and bike shorts or pushing strollers. ladies and gentlemen, step right up to Coney Is- “You can just kind of come as you are,” he says. Te land! At the watery edge of Brooklyn, where the brewery turns fve this September, and its success city meets the sea, you’ll fnd the fabled amuse- mirrors a larger Oceanside revival. Now, the town ment district’s freak shows and roller coasters, has new restaurants, a distillery, a climbing gym twinkling neon, and foods designed for maxi- and cofee roasters, the brewery anchoring the mum pleasure, minimal nutritional value. town’s rising tide. “Beach culture and beer really Coney Island Brewing, located in a baseball go hand in hand.” stadium of the boardwalk, complements its quenching, cooler-stufng Beach Beer with sideshow-styled limited releases like Cotton Candy Kölsch and Kettle Corn Cream Ale. “I get A Salty Salute to draw inspiration from things I get to see on a daily basis,” says head brewer Matt McCall, who Modern brewers regularly incorporate native last summer spotted a kid’s colorful snow cone. fora into beer to create a drinkable sense of “Tat screams ‘beach.’ Why not make a snow place. Pacifc Northwest spruce tips pop up in cone–inspired beer?” (It became Snow Coney, pale ales, while Michigan-grown cherries ap- tarted up with lactose, raspberries and lime peel.) pear in beers both sour and stout. Beach brew- McCall also looks beyond the boardwalk to eries also have a distinct pantry to pull from. local residents, in particular the Russian enclave New Hampshire’s Portsmouth Brewery fa- of neighboring Brighton Beach, where tarragon vors ocean-grown sugar kelp to favor Selkie, a soda is a grocery staple. He formulated a gose Scottish red ale with a lip-smacking briny fnish favored with sea salt, coriander and the herb, that’s beachgoers’ Proustian moment. As head creating a “really nice, soft, kind of herbal thing,” brewer Matt Gallagher recounted for the brew- McCall says of Tarot Gone Gose. “I think there’s ery’s website, he drew upon childhood memo- room for beers like that.” ries of swimming in the ocean and, hours later, Instead of Ferris wheels, the beach in Pacifc still tasting salt on his lips. City, Oregon, ofers Instagram-worthy sunsets Patchogue, New York, on Long Island’s south over the 327-foot Haystack Rock, best served with shore, is both home to and inspiration for Blue patio pints at Pelican Brewing. Te brewery was Point Brewing. “It’s about being open to all your founded in 1996 in a wind-beaten, salt-sprayed old senses when you’re out by the beach,” says Blue building by the Pacifc Ocean, the beach in its DNA Point brewmaster Mike Stoneburg. He’s taken a from day one. “Te sense of place really informed All photos: Gary Allard Gary photos: All

54 imbibemagazine.com ~ july/august 2019 Bagby Beer Company in Oceanside, California. This photo: Dande and Jeff Bagby. Pelican Pub and Brewery in Pacific City, Oregon. the decisions we made,” says brewmaster and co- Rybicki, who had developed a following for his owner Darron Welch, who came onboard as the hazy IPAs, drawing fans three hours away in brewery’s frst employee. Columbia, South Carolina. “I had it going for a Take the brewpub’s concrete foors, which minute then, blammo, it’s a natural disaster,” he make it easy to sweep of sand. An entrance fac- says. “What do you do?” ing the parking lot and a patio overlooking the He left brewing and went to work in con- beach entice people strolling to and from the struction while plotting his next steps, eventually ocean to pop in for a beer, perhaps one inspired partnering with a friend to open Lincoln & South by the surroundings. “As we’re imagining a sum- Brewing Company. It’s slated to open by sum- mer seasonal, we’ll start the process by thinking mer’s end in an air-conditioning contractor’s for- about the setting, the circumstances, and how mer headquarters that’s pretty food-proof. “It’s you feel when you’re sitting on the patio on a one of the highest elevations on Hilton Head Is- sunny day, or you’ve hiked a couple miles down land,” Rybicki says, reciting the exact height: 13.1 the beach and are having a picnic in the sand,” feet. “Tat wasn’t done by accident.” Te brew- Welch says. ery’s been in the works for several years, partly Tis summer, there’ll be an IPA on tap, right delayed by a housing search. “Finding a home around 6 percent ABV, heaped with Oregon’s for what you do, on an island that’s 12 miles by 6 Strata hops, a new variety with a dank fruitiness. miles wide, is difcult,” he says. “We try to be very thoughtful and make sure that Islamorada Beer also discovered the dif- there’s an intention and a purpose behind what culty of building a large brewery in the Florida we make,” Welch says. Keys, where construction permits are tough to wrangle. Te company, which operates a smaller brewery for specialties and one-ofs in Islamo- rada, planted its main production facility in Fort Storm Warning Pierce, on the Florida mainland. Te continental outpost packages the brewery’s beer, meeting de- On cloudless summer days when the mercury mand except when there’s none. hits the mid-80s, a cool breeze keeping bugs at After Hurricane Irma blitzed the Keys in 2017, bay, beach breweries basically mint money. But the brewery didn’t bottle beer for almost a month beaches typically ofer seasonal, weather-de- and a half. “Overnight, all our retailers shut pendent business. Summer’s warm kiss fades to down,” says co-founder Bradley, noting that 70 winter’s cold embrace, driving down crowds and to 80 percent of Keys resorts closed, sending hos- purchases of pints and six-packs. January and pitality workers elsewhere. Te local workforce February were cold and wet around San Diego, dispersed, and the hospitality labor pool remains sending sales at Bagby Beer skittering south. “I shallow today. “Bartenders and servers can’t af- don’t know what it is, but San Diegans don’t go ford to live in the Keys,” he says. out when it rains,” Bagby says. “It seemed like every week it would start raining “IT’S A RISK I'VE ALWAYS BEEN WILLING on Tursday or Friday, and it would rain through the TO TAKE TO LIVE AT THE BEACH.” weekend.” Some storms infict —COMMONWEALTH BREWING'S JERAMY BIGGIE more lasting impact. Last September, Hurricane

From top: Pelican Brewing Company, Courtesy of Visit Tillamook Coast Tillamook Visit of Courtesy Company, Brewing Pelican top: From Florence destroyed Tidewater Brewing, in Some of these bummers are just the bumps of Wilmington, North Carolina, one week before running businesses, reality encroaching on end- the brewery was scheduled to open. Hurricane less summer. Tere’s a calculus to consider, a cal- Sandy fooded Coney Island’s future ballpark culated risk to having one foot in the water, the home in 2012. Te same tempest sent four feet other on land. A single rogue swell could sweep of storm surge into Barrier Brewing, located in everything away, sure, but for every destructive Long Island’s nearby Oceanside, devastating wave there are thousands of delightful ones, the delivery trucks and tanks alike. water as cool, frothy and refreshing as a beach In 2016, Hurricane Matthew hammered day’s beer. Hilton Head Island, of the coast of South “It’s a risk I’ve always been willing to take to Carolina, wrecking Hilton Head Brewing. “Te live at the beach,” says Commonwealth’s Biggie. whole inside of the brewery was foating— “It’s certainly worth it to work, live and play this tanks and kegs and coolers,” says John Rybicki, close to such a great resource as the beach and the brewer at the time. Flooding gut-punched the ocean.”

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