Greenbrier Valley new King of Black

While the rest of the beer world may seem to be steering away from black variants of traditionally pale beer styles, the folks at Greenbrier Valley Brewing Company are introducing new black beers faster than Trump posting tweets. Maybe they know something the rest of us don’t.

With soon to be three black beer variants of pale beer styles in their stable, GVBC is the unabashed King of Black in the Mountain State. While their Mothman Black IPA is the most familiar, the brewery also has a new Black Lager and will soon add a Black Wit to its lineup. And don’t forget their Black Saison of a couple year’s back.

The black beer variants discussed here do not include porters and stouts, which are by definition always dark colored. Black beer variants of pale beer styles are a different animal. They are style contrarians and have surely been around for as long as there have been creative craft beer brewers pushing the limits. Prior to 2010, black beer variants of pale beer styles were typically only a blip on the radar in America. But in the early part of this decade, Black IPAs took a big jump in popularity, and black beer variants of traditional pale beer styles began receiving more notice.

Black IPA

Black IPAs are a more recent appendage to the 40-year-old American IPA beer style. Black IPAs have always been a bit controversial, mostly due to whether you can actually have a “black” IPA, because the American IPA, by definition, was a pale amber to light copper colored beer.

The industry debated the style name, with some choosing to call their black IPAs Cascadian Dark Ale. Regardless of the name, the style’s popularity hit big late in the 2000s decade. The typical Black IPA was patterned on a bitter, hop forward West Coast Style IPA, but with an addition of highly roasted malt to give it the black color. For a while, they seemed to pop up in every brewery’s portfolio, but it turned out to be a fairly short lived phenomena.

By 2017, many of the quintessential U.S. producers of Black IPA had either abandoned the style or relegated it to an occasional appearance in their seasonal line-ups. For instance, in 2015, Stone Brewing announced it was removing Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale, which was probably the most iconic example of Black IPA, from its core lineup. In 2016, Firestone Walker followed suit with its Wookey Jack. In 2017, the flagship Back in Black, formerly distributed in 25 states, disappeared from the 21st Amendment Brewing line. And so on.

For the past few years, the trendy and fickle IPA-drinking public has been moving away from the danker, West Coast-style IPA bitterness — especially black ones — in favor of a much softer, juicier hop profile. No matter how well made a Black IPA was, the mass market was moving in another direction. And while Black IPAs continue to have their following, it is a diminished one from five years ago.

Mothman Black IPA

As its inaugural contrarian brew, Greenbrier Valley introduced its Mothman Black IPA when the new brewery began distribution in September 2014, but the brand really began to get notice after its canned version, with the great can-label art, hit beer retailer shelves in early 2015. It was the brewery’s original entry in the IPA style. Benefiting from the popularity of the parnormal Mothman legend and popular movie, the beer received a lot of notice here and across the country.

As it happened, Mothman Black IPA was introduced on the tail end of the national Black IPA peak popularity. It fit well in the West Coast style with its assertive hopping coming from classic high-alpha Columbus and Amarillo hops. It is definitely a well made beer with enough malt to provide balance to its bitterness.

The beer has done okay for the brewery, and it maintains a solid 3.7 out of 5 rating on Untappd with over 8,000 ratings. That number of ratings is very good for a West Virginia beer. It definitely has a following. But as far as sales go within the GVBC line today, Mothman has been greatly eclipsed by the sales of their newer, regular IPA, Devil Anse.

Last year, when Brian Reymiller, GVBC’s director of brewing operations, returned to GVBC and the brewery was adjusting its brewing processes to incorporate their big new investment in improved equipment and brewing ingredients, I asked him if he might use that opportunity to tweak Mothman to make the beer more palatable to today’s IPA drinkers. He didn’t think they needed to make that move. And maybe keeping its traditional West Coast hop assertiveness is best, as long as the beer can maintain a decent level of sales. With GVBC moving into Northern Virginia distribution, Mothman’s novelty label will surely get it some new trial. And among those who try it, it will surely pick up some regular customers. But long-term, growing sales could prove challenging as the IPA market seems relentless today in its jaunt toward the pale, juicy-hazy New England style IPAs, leaving many a good bitter West Coast style IPA, both black and pale, with declining sales.

Black Lager

I’ll have to admit that I was a bit surprised when Brian Reymiller told me upon his return to GVBC last year that one of the first new flagship beers they were adding to the line-up would be a Black Lager. It was an unexpected contrarian move. While the Germans have been making a black lager for centuries, the style does sell well in America.

Reymiller told me his love for Black Lager goes way back. It is a style that he and many other brewers greatly appreciate. He had made lots of lagers in past brewing gigs and most recently got a close up look at a very good black one while brewing for Devils Backbone Brewing Company in 2017-18. While it is not a big seller, their Schwarz Bier is among the best beers brewed there through the years. I remember Devils Backbone head brewer Jason Oliver basically telling me the main reason they kept making it was because the brewing crew loved it, and not because of its sales.

Like their pale lager brethren, black lagers are easy drinking, quaffable brews fermented with a traditional lager yeast strain. They get their black color from the addition of highly roasted specialty malts, which do not typically add a lot of body or flavor — maybe a hint of chocolate or coffee. They are differentiated from stouts and porters by their fermentation with lager yeast, relatively lighter body, dryer finish, and by the more common use of German hops instead of American hop varieties. While black lagers, stouts, and porters often feature a nice malty flavors, stouts and porters tend to be more fruity and estery in style due to their fermentation with ale yeast. Lager yeasts and the lagering process produces a comparatively cleaner tasting beer.

While stouts have developed a strong following among today’s craft consumers, Black Lagers tend to be more of a footnote in American craft breweries. Yes, it is a beloved classic German style and people still make them, but you don’t find many of them on beer retailer shelves or taps. They are more common as a seasonal release, sometimes thrown into a mixed 12-pack, or as a small-batch taproom exclusive offering.

Bat Boy Black Lager

Channeling their best contrarian moxie, Greenbrier Valley decided to throw caution to the wind and go all out to promote its new Black Lager. Picking up on another West Virginia legend, the brewery licensed the rights to use the Bat Boy name and image. With its catchy brand name and can-label art, Greenbrier Valley’s Bat Boy Black Lager should be well positioned to get a lot of trial in the market. We will just have to wait and see if that can overcome the craft consumers’ general lack of excitement for the style.

From having tried it myself, I know Bat Boy Black Lager is a well-made, enjoyable beer. It is brewed in the classic German Schwarzbier style with German malt and German hops. It is a style I can appreciate, but a style I don’t find myself ordering very often. Maybe the tasty Bat Boy will change my buying habits.

If the recent national boom in popularity of pale lagers from American craft breweries ever extends to black lagers, Bat Boy would be well-positioned to benefit.

Black Wit

Witbier literally translates from Flemish to English as white beer, which makes a Black Wit even more of an oxymoron than a Black IPA. So, if Black Wit means black white, could there be anything that better fits a contrarian attitude?

Along with pale barley malts, traditional Witbiers contain up to to 50% malted and/or unmalted wheat in their mash, which produces a paler colored beer. Because it is unfiltered, Witbier also has a cloudy appearance. The light color and cloudy appearance gives rise to the Witbier or white beer name. GVBC’s traditional-styled regular Witbier, Zona’s Revenge, has been in the market for about two years now, so the brewery is experienced in the Wit style and has a good handle on its place in the market.

But how how does a white wheat beer turn black? Greenbrier Valley adds some dark roasted Carafa malt and also a dark Munich malt in the mash to give the beer its black color.

Unlike the brewery’s Zona’s Revenge, the Sambrinus Black Wit will no have coriander flavoring, but instead will have a darker fruitiness from the addition of black currant puree. Both beers have orange peel added. The Black Wit will also benefit from the use of a different yeast strain that accentuates a deeper clove-like spiciness in the beer, instead of the traditional Belgian Wit yeast, which gives a more delicate spiciness.

GVBC’s Sambrinus Black Wit came from a recipe originally worked up by General Manager Sam Walker-Matthews. Reymiller says they are really excited about the new beer, of which they brewed a 50-barrel batch. It should hit the market at the first of May.

Reymiller tells us that the unmalted wheat they used in their Black Wit was locally grown in Hillsboro, WV. “Now that we have seen how the wheat performed in the brewhouse, we will likely be switching the wheat in the Zona’s to the local wheat as well,” he notes.

The Black Wit style is so rarely made by American brewers that there is no reliable way to gauge an expectation of the craft consumers’ acceptance of it. GVBC will surely assess the beer’s success based on its sell-through and the feedback received from accounts. If it catches on, then we may well see this beer brewed again.

Overall, the Witbier style tends to be fairly fragile and is not a beer to age. Drink it fresh and you won’t be disappointed. I’m looking forward to giving it a try.

King of Black

Through the years, trade journals and business legends are replete with stories of entrepreneurs and stock market investors who have become very wealthy using contrarian strategies. Let’s hope it also works for GVBC.

With both GVBC’s Sam Walker Matthews and Brian Reymiller squarely in the contrarian Black Beer camp, making black beer variants is truly becoming a trademark of the West Virginia brewery. There may be no other brewery in America that has such a high percentage of its core brands dedicated to black variants of pale beer styles. Greenbrier Valley is truly our King of Black.

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Greenbrier Valley Brewing website link