The lineup of breweries making organic beer in New England includes Wolaver's, Peak, Orlio, and Green Valley Brewing, an Anheuser-Busch subsidiary that produces Stone Mill pale ale and Wild Hop lager. (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

FIRST DRAFT | ORGANIC BEER

Brewers welcome natural competition

By Ann Cortissoz, Globe Staff | June 20, 2007

These days, it seems New England has got it going on, at least when it comes to organic beer production.

When Morgan Wolaver and his brother, an organic farmer, founded their beer company in 1997, "Nobody was taking organic beer seriously," Wolaver says. People were focused on using organics as a marketing tool rather than concentrating on brewing. "The reason some people tried and failed is that they weren't making very good beer," he says.

Wolaver's organic ales succeeded, and its pale ale, brown ale, and India pale ale were New England's only bottled organic brews for years. Then the market for all things organic exploded, and a year and a half ago, Wolaver's was joined on the New England shelf at the liquor store by Peak Organic , from Portland, Maine. Sensing a trend, Anheuser-Busch joined the party soon after, producing Stone Mill and Wild Hop organic beers under the Green Valley Brewing label. They make the Stone Mill out of the Redhook brewery in New Hampshire.

Wolaver, whose sales have been growing by about 18 percent each year, says he's glad to have company. "I think it has a kind of billboard effect," he says. Consumers who weren't thinking about buying organic beer may notice a cooler door full of the brew and decide to try it.

That billboard effect is in full view at Cambridge Wine & Spirits in the Fresh Pond shopping center. Larry Hunter has one door of his refrigerator filled with organic beer. "Wolaver's is always a good seller," Hunter says, "But people come in and see all the other beers and ask me about them, too." The liquor store is next to a Whole Foods Market, and, as Hunter points out, "When people are buying organic food, they want to buy organic beer."

Peak founder Jo n Cadoux is glad about the domino effect for several reasons. Cadoux had been brewing as a hobby for eight years, about seven of those using organic ingredients, before he decided to start bottling and distributing. He thinks these days there's a perception that organic products taste better, and consumers want to try them. And he hopes that having a behemoth like A-B joining the ranks of producers using organic grain will be a boost to farmers who don't use pesticides.

"It's great that [A-B is] doing it," Cadoux says. "We wish everyone were doing it, because it's going to take a lot to counteract the soil degradation and agricultural run-off" that conventional grain farming produces.

To earn organic certification from the US Department of Agriculture, beer (and all other products) must be made with 95 percent organic ingredients. (The other 5 percent must come from a list of exceptions approved by the USDA. Hops are one of the 38 substances on the list. However, the list is under review, and the USDA says it is "moving these materials through the regulatory process as quickly as possible.") Organic barley is fairly available to brewers, though it's between 30 and 50 percent more expensive than conventional grain, according to Wolaver's general manager Gail Daha . But organic hops are a lot harder to come by. Most have to be imported from New Zealand.

Fortunately, Wolaver points out, "Beer is made up of about 95 or 96 percent grain," so even if organic hops aren't used, the beer itself can still be called organic. This might change depending on whether hops remain on the USDA's list of exceptions.

Both Wolaver's and Peak use organic hops when they can get them. Anheuser-Busch wouldn't comment for this story.

Last month, another New England-produced organic brew, Orlio from the Magic Hat brewery in Vermont, entered the market with an India pale ale and a beer call ed Common Ale. Orlio president Alan Newman agrees with the heads of Wolaver's and Peak that having several local entrants in the organic market is a good thing. "It will introduce a lot of people to the idea," he says.

Orlio wants to distinguish itself from the others, says head brewer Matt Cohen. It has taken a different approach with its stylized black packaging. "We tried to make something a little slicker, something that didn't look like an organic product," Cohen says.

That's what it is, though. And now four of the 11 breweries in the United States producing organic beer are in New England -- and among them they produce 10 varieties.

That shelf in the beer cooler is getting crowded.