Neil Witte, a Master Cicerone and beer industry veteran, puts it like this: “Craft-beer consumers want new stuff all the time, but they also crave authenticity.”
It’s a duality at the core of American beer culture and a driving force behind the incessant innovation on which the industry is built. From the first American pale ales brewed in the late 1970s to the renaissance of lager styles on taps today, American brewers have gotten quite good at taking Old World ideas and tweaking them for American palates. This isn’t limited to borrowing styles from Europe; some brewers and publicans have taken to borrowing service techniques endemic to beer cultures older than our own.
Take the rising popularity of the “slow pour” pilsner and the focus it places on the beer’s foam—this trendy service style often is enabled by a special piece of equipment that uses a sideways approach to the act of pouring a pint: the side-pull draft faucet.
Heirloom Rustic Ales brews the side-pull version of their pilsner with more bitterness and carbonates more than their standard CO2 pilsner. Photo Courtesy Heirloom Rustic Ales.