Pura Cerveza: BriBri Springs Brewery

By Lee Heidel July 9, 2016

bribri springs brewery — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Many visitors to Costa Rica skip over the Caribbean coast of the country, opting instead for the volcanoes, cloud forests or Pacific surfing hotspots. But these less travelled areas have their own histories, stories and surprises to share. In addition to the cocoa farms, incredibly laid-back locals and wide smiled tree-hanging sloths, BriBri Springs Brewery is one of those hidden treasures.

Driving north from the town of Puerto Viejo, you’ll find Kaya’s Place, a roadside hotel overlooking the black sand beaches of Playa Negra. The heavily timbered and brightly painted bar and restaurant serves a wide-ranging menu designed to please weary travelers and neighbors alike. It is also home to a startlingly broad variety of beer styles thanks to the fact that BriBri Springs Brewery is located directly behind the hotel.

bri bri springs brewery — BriBri Springs Brewery in Costa Rica Image used with permission by copyright holder

Brewery owner and brew master J.T. Ficociello relocated to Puerto Viejo from the craft beer mecca of Vermont. He brought a love for hops in his heart and physical bags of hops in his carry-on suitcases as he slowly built up his capacity and diversified his recipes. His beers can now be found both at Kaya’s Place and other taverns in the area.

Some of BriBri Springs Brewery’s most interesting beers include:

Austen’s Ale is a porter named after a local coconut salesman and is brewed with local organic cacao.

Basi is a completely unique hybrid beer that shares many characteristics with meads. The recipe includes Costa Rican mangoes, pineapple and raw cane sugar and clocks in at a big 14% ABV.

The Caribe Barley Wine shares Basi’s high alcohol by volume but is surprisingly easy to drink compared to its English and American variations. The emphasis here is on complete flavor and not strictly to showcase hops or malts.

Costa Rica’s craft beer scene is evolving quickly. No longer solely the land of Imperial and Pilsen, talented brewers like J.T. and his Bri Bri Springs Brewery are raising the profile of craft beer in the country and creating a vibrant, exciting future for Costa Rican beer.

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Liquor, Beer, and Wine

Lee Heidel is the managing editor of Brew/Drink/Run, a website and podcast that promotes brewing your own beer, consuming the…

Food & Drink

Oskar Blues Brewery Releases French’s Mustard Beer

oskar blues frenchs mustard beer pr select 2

Mustard and beer is a great combination, but usually we're talking mustard used as a condiment on a sausage or pretzel alongside a pint. Colorado's Oskar Blues Brewery has taken this pairing to a whole new level with a new collaboration with French's Mustard, appropriately called French’s Mustard Beer. It's a tropical wheat beer that is literally brewed with French’s Classic Yellow Mustard, along with an infusion of fruit and citrus flavors including key lime, lemon, tangerine, and passion fruit. “We’re stoked on bold flavors at Oskar Blues Brewery and we never shy away from a challenge,” said Oskar Blues head brewer, Juice Drapeau, in a prepared statement. “With French’s Mustard Beer we elevated the Classic Yellow Mustard flavor with tangy lemon and lime to create a tropical wheat ale I’d pair with a loaded hot dog on the hottest day of the year.”

This isn't the first food crossover for French's, known for its bright yellow mustard that is ubiquitous at backyard barbecues around the country. Last year, the brand collaborated with Coolhaus to release a mustard ice cream that was available in New York and California for a limited time alongside a pretzel cookie. And Oskar Blues is no stranger to brewing uniquely flavored beer, as indicated by its "Death By" series of brews with such flavors as king cake, coconut, and even affogato.

Food & Drink

This Road in Washington is Where All Your Favorite Beers Get Their Start

Hop farms.

On a map, it doesn’t look like much more than a straight north-south line just southwest of Wapato, Washington. Yet, the road known as Lateral A in the Yakima Valley is one of the most famous hop-growing stretches on earth. Here, one of beer’s critical ingredients grows up along tall trellises as far as the eye can see, harvested annually and sent off to brewers near and far.
It’s a reminder of the many people and places that go into your favorite brews. Rural areas like this provide the space, climate, and human beings for such sprawling agricultural tracts. Those who’ve been to the Yakima Valley know of the openness of this arid country, with mountains beyond and glimpses of Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams to the west. If it wasn’t for the dramatic topography in the distance, you’d think you were in the desert, or some farm-heavy stretch of the Midwest, mid-drought.

Here, the sun shines more than 200 days per year. It’s an energized environment, one that’s responsible for three of every four hops produced in the entire country. What started as an experimental planting in 1868 is now an impressive patchwork of hop-farms. It’s said that a hotel room in the area is hard to come by in August and September, when bottom cutters meander through rows, harvesting the annual crop and brewer’s celebrate with farm-fresh creations.
The valley is quickly approaching 150 hop varieties, which emerge, cone-like, from hop bines (yes, bines, not vines) that can surpass the height of a three-story building. It’s home to many family-run operations which have been hauling in hops for generations. Places like Perrault Farms, in Toppenish a bit south along Lateral A. The Perrault Family arrived here in 1902, when Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House. In addition to growing eleven hop varieties, the family raises bison and grows blueberries.
The hops end up in everything from specialty one-off seasonal beers by Bale Breaker Brewing Company (just north and on the other side of the Yakima River) to Budweiser. Business is booming and the area has its requisite commissions, grower-owned coops, and the like. It’s not uncommon to see reps from the big boys like AB InBev-owned labels sniffing around for a good deal on some choice hops.

Food & Drink

Understanding the Difference Between Dry Hop and Wet Hop Beers

dry hop wet beer explained hops closeup getty

Hops are as important to beer as grapes are to wine. New hybrids are entering the picture every year, changing what a beer is able to do in terms of flavor and fragrance. From a beer-making standpoint, one major consideration is whether to go the wet hop or dry hop route. But the names can cause a little confusion.
For the record, most hops are dried. They get picked in the field, treated to some warm air, and are often shaped into pellet-like cones for use later on. Since most are grown in the northwest but beer is made all over, this is a great way to preserve a good hop and ship it all over the globe. It’s said that they can last for several years in this format (although we all know how great a fresh-hop beer is).
But a dry-hopped beer usually refers to the actual beer-making approach. Hops are added later in the process so that they hang on to their aromatic intensity. Part of that intensity is owed to the fact that dried hops tend to be denser in terms of the flavor and fragrance punch that they pack. The overall IBU dial will be adjusted, too, as hops inject varying amounts of bitterness. There are even double dry-hopped beers, which means if triple and quadruple dry-hopped beers don’t exist yet, they’re coming soon.
You’d think wet hop would be just the opposite — throwing the flavorful cones in during the boil, giving them a good soak. Nope. A wet-hopped beer is a lot like a fresh-hop beer. It’s made with hops that are not air or kiln-dried. They tend to be moist and full of flavorful oils, having just recently been harvested. The flavors tend to be more nuanced and green in nature. And if it weren’t for new hop oils and extracts, you’d really only find wet-hop beers once a year, right around the hop harvest in early autumn.
Some breweries will do a wet and dry take on the same beer, but I’ve yet to see both versions canned or bottled and available side-by-side. Often times, the wet or fresh hop version is a limited run and simply poured on draft at the brewery’s headquarters. Either way, it’s worth looking out for when sipping beer in the fall.
Here are some worth trying to see what side of the hop fence your taste resides.

Wet: Great Divide Fresh Hop Pale