Beer in Wine Country

In a region where a bottle of wine commands $20 more than anywhere else in California, you can’t go far on a beer budget. The good news is you don’t have to.

The Upvalley offers at least three establishments where — to borrow a phrase — the choicest products of the brewer’s art are well within the range of the average consumer and the average disposable income. Two of them, St. Helena’s Silverado Brewing Company and the Calistoga Inn, make their beer on premises. The third, Calistoga’s Hydro Grill, offers a wide range of microbrews on tap.

And, if a wine term can be applied, the pairings — of cheeseburgers, not Camembert — are just about always excellent. All three establishments, Silverado Brewing, Calistoga Inn and Hydro Grill, present some of the best fare possible for decent prices.

At first blush, beer in Wine Country sounds like a contradiction in terms: a Ford pickup truck among the Lamborghinis and Ferraris. But good brewmeisters are every bit as adroit at their craft as winemakers.

Don’t take our word for it. Ask the winemakers. “It takes a lot of good beer to make great wine,” quips Tudal Winery’s Ron Vuylsteke, who enjoys the occasional microbrew.

“In all those long hours of harvesting they’re working up a thirst,” said Silverado Brewing beermaker Ken Mee.

“I’m told by members of the wine industry that brewing is harder than winemaking,” Mee added. “But I’d say beermaking is easier because I can make beer anytime I want. They gotta make their wine in September or October.”

After nine years owning and operating Silverado Brewing with Michael Fradelzia, Mee is a brewer at the top of his craft — his name is as recognizable as the Valley’s best-known winemakers. Born and raised in St. Helena, he became interested in brewing while in high school.

“There was a big push in microbrewing when I got to college and I realized that this is something that can take off,” he said. “So I started honing my skills and 11 years ago I completed a course at the American Brewer School in Woodland.”

Up the road, Brad Smisloff took a little different approach. He developed his beer-designing skills through the hard-won experience of seven years in commercial breweries in Boston before moving to the more temperate climate of California. As Calistoga Inn’s brewmeister, Smisloff is entrusted with maintaining the reputation of an establishment that was among the first to produce microbeer in Northern California in 1987.

The biggest difference between making beer and making wine in the Upvalley is the accessibility of ingredients. The chief hops supplier is not the area around the town of Hopland — the birthplace of California breweries — but the Pacific Northwest.

Mee and Smisloff also obtain grains from Germany, Czechoslovakia, England, Canada, the American Midwest and elsewhere.

Much as in winemaking, there is an infinite variety of beer produced. Mee said that in a year’s time he may create up to 17 or 18 different beers. Dispensing only from its bar, Silverado Brewing sells 18,000 gallons of beer in a year.

“There’s a beer for every occasion and a glass for every beer,’ Mee asserts.

Certain beers go with certain dishes. A stout with pot roast or a French dip sandwich, a blond beer with fish and chips. Seasons figure into the equation, too. A dark brown “St. Euphorius” Abbey Ale produced by Mee goes well on wintry nights. Smisloff brews Kolsch, a straw-colored German beer for the summer.

“You wouldn’t mix a stout with a blond, although at the bar you can do that and call it a ‘blond with tan,’” Mee said.

The brewers will add character to a beer with, say, orange peel, coriander seed and other ingredients.

“But we make beers that are traditionally accurate,” Mee added. “We like to follow (established) practices and recipe formulations for beers that have been around forever, so we’re not adding any ingredients to impact the ‘flavor profile’ of a beer.”

Barrel aging, which invests brewing with a sophistication rivaling winemaking, appears to be a wave of the future and has taken off to an extent in Sonoma County. It is a process that requires years of experience in making beer “in the old way,” said Mee.

A 12 to 16 percent alcohol content gives barrel-aged beer longer life and Mee said that some styles he produces are high in alcohol.

“But I’m not a real hops guy,” he added. “We do it because we want to keep people who like the hops happy.”