WASHINGTON — Beer is a go-with-everything beverage. It can complement a variety of cuisine, any time of the year.
All that variety equals a great potential for invention, and craft brewing has more than its share of experimentation, with brewers large and small exploring all shades of the flavor spectrum.
And as the new year approaches, you can expect a mix of staples, old revivals and niche specialties in 2018, according to Brian Gaylor of Black Flag Brewing in Colulmbia, Maryland. Here’s what’s on tap:
1. Special Releases. Limited allotments of unique brews create a sense of exclusivity that has created a cult following among the people that enjoy these release events. People travel all over the state and country to get in on beers that many will never get a chance to try.
2. Destination taprooms. As more breweries pop up, it’s becoming less about dominating space on a shelf and giving everyone a commodity — creating something you can’t get elsewhere, and standing apart from the crowd. Taprooms attached to breweries are now competing with coffeehouses as the new “third space” alternative to home and work. The more creative/unique, the better.
3. Hazy, hoppy beers and sour beers. These sectors are already big, but they’re getting bigger. They appeal to people who already loved beer, but are also looping in people who have written off beer previously as something unappealing (e.g., wine lovers).
4. Food-centric beers. People like the beers that are supposed to be food, Gaylor said. For example: stouts inspired by Mexican hot chocolate, a mole stout. “Anytime we have anything that has a food name,” he said, “it makes people want to buy it and it flies off the shelf.”
5. All that love for IPA isn’t going away. “IPA rules everything,” the brewer said. “I think over time other things will chip away at it — like I love that people are paying more attention to sour this year. But if Black Flag were to only make one beer it would easily be IPA.”
In the meantime, this holiday season has its own beer trends, Gaylor said. Break it down to three C’s: Coffee and chocolate are inspirations, as is comfort.
“People are looking to satisfy some sort of itch with comfort food beers,” he said, “so hitting that nerve with a cinnamon roll stout and other relaxing themes really seems to do well.”
Black Flag Brewing will host an ugly sweater Christmas party (featuring a screening of the movie “Elf”) Friday, Dec. 22, at 4 p.m. A new beer will also be released: Cotton-Headed Ninny-Muggins, a Belgian dubbel brewed with candy canes and Pixy Stix. The Bistro Lunchbox food truck will be serve food from 5-8 p.m. Read more on the Black Flag site.
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