Little Animals makes mammoth beer impact

There’s nothing more fun than discovering a tiny, off-the-radar brewery that produces hugely good beer. Little Animals Brewery in Johnson City, Tennessee is one of those nuggets. From some of my funky beer loving friends, I’d been hearing of their mastery of saisons and other Belgian-influenced styles. While traveling through their area recently, I stopped to give them a try. I’m so glad I did.

It was a hot summer day and the first thing I needed when I arrived was something refreshing. I ordered a glass of their Overbrim Pilsner poured from a side-pull faucet. I took a sip. I smiled. I took another sip and then a slow, deep breathe. As I let it out, I relished the experience. So fresh, crisp and cleanly brewed it was, with such a masterfully gentle touch and balance that I guess I hadn’t expected from a farmhouse ale brewer. The hops and malt were in perfect harmony. I expressed my appreciation of the beer to Little Animal’s founder/brewer Chris Cates.

“It’s one of my favorite beers we make,” Cates responded. It was a response that surprised me a bit, since his reputation is all about farmhouse ales. It just goes to show that you can’t simply pigeon hole a really talented brewer into one category. He told me the story about the brewery beginning operations during peak COVID pandemic and not initially opening its taproom. Later, when the taproom did have a little soft opening, announced solely the same day by a sign in the window, it had only one beer on tap: the Overbrim Pilsner. “We had like 15 people come and drink pilsner. It was kind of weird and awesome.”

Homebrew shop to brewery

A decade ago Chris began as a homebrewer who dreamed of someday opening a commercial brewery. In 2014, he started up a homebrew supply shop in Johnson City, which then slowly morphed in to a brewery. He closed the homebrew supply shop in 2019 when his brewery development got seriously underway. Little Animals Brewery sold its first beers in April 2020.

Cates’ initial interest in home brewing was to make the styles of beer he loved but had a hard time finding in the Johnson City area. We’re talking about Belgian-style farmhouse ales like saisons, Flanders Reds, mixed-culture sours, and other funky brews. That concept stuck with him as he developed his brewery.

“Little Animals is from the word animalcule, which is an archaic word for microorganism,” he says. “The focus is on the yeast and on the symbiotic relationship between brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus in mixed culture brewing.”

Word has been getting around that Little Animals farmhouse ales are works of art.

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Listen to the interview with Chris Cates

Chris Cates provides lots of details how he got started, how he makes several of his unique beer offerings, and gives his thoughts on the current craft beer market.

More than farmhouse

Cates likes to say that brewing farmhouse ales is their primary focus, but that’s not the only beers they brew. It’s a business reality today that to succeed as a small brewery in a small city, you have to brew a wider range of popular styles in order to produce the revenue needed to stay in business and support your passion. That awareness is not lost on Cates. He realized that to succeed downtown, he would have to brew in his words “crowd-pleasing beers.” And brew some crowd-pleasers he does. That aforementioned Pilsner is just one example.

“I don’t have a narrow interest as far as beer goes,” Cates says. While he loves saison, he also loves German-style lagers, West Coast IPA, and English ales. He says he’s not the biggest hazy IPA fan, but he still brews them too. What you’ll find at Little Animals are good beers, all well crafted. And with 10 taps offered, I have no doubt you’ll find at least a couple of brews that will leave you completely satisfied.

For example, when I was there the tap list included a malty dark wheat lager, an easy drinking grisette, a coffee milk stout, a hazy Nelson Sauvin IPA, a German-style pilsner, an English-style pub ale, a sour saison with peaches, an extra-hoppy Belgian-style pale ale, and a guest tap with hard kombucha. Because it’s a small-batch brewery, the selections will change often, but the popular ones always return.

Little Animals excels at funky

But to get back to Cates’ passion for Belgian farmhouse ales and other less-common styles, you’ll find some brews that will knock your socks off. Here’s a few of them that people truly enjoy.

Animalcule Sour Saison. “We don’t really have a flagship, per se, but if we had a flagship beer that would be it,” says Cates of his Animalcule series. He describes it as a saison decoupage, or blended beer. One of the more uncommon things you’ll find at Little Animals is the process of blending a barrel-aged sour stock beer with freshly-made beer to produce their sour farmhouse ales. The sour stock is produced from an ale fermented with a mixed culture and put up in barrels for 8 to 12 months to develop and sour. This “acid component” is then used for blending with fresh saison and a fruit addition. The blend is aged for an additional 2 to 3 more months before release. The current Animalcule was aged with peaches. While quite tart, it is smooth, complex and easy drinking with plenty of peach character. Coming up next is Animalcule: Black Currant.

Dans La Merde is a collaboration Belgian style dark strong ale brewed with Bob Sylvester, the accomplished American saison and farmhouse ale brewer, who for many years owned and operated Saint Somewhere Brewing in Tarpon Springs, Florida, until his semi-retirement in 2020. Dans La Merde is an experimental beer that attempts to recreate a pre-2000 Oerbier from De Dolle brewery in Belgium. From 1980 to 2000, De Dolle brewed Oerbier with yeast they got from the Rodenbach Brewery, and the beer would turn slightly sour in the bottle over time. After 2000 they no longer brewed Oerbier with Rodenbach yeast, and the beer no longer gets sour in the bottle. For Dans La Merde, they brewed Sylvester’s recipe for a Belgian dark strong and then blended in 10% of Little Animals Flanders Red ale. The blend was aged under pressure in a stainless steel tank to simulate bottle conditions for six months. The resultant rich malty, lightly tart ale is a beauty.

Snake Skin Jacket is a classic Saison base base beer usually hopped with a blend of modern and Noble hops, to provide more levels of flavor and aroma. Bottle conditioned with brettanomyces. They say to drink it young for a fresh, hoppy Saison experience or age it to bring out the Brett funk. The latest edition of Snake Skin Jacket is hopped with Sterling, Mosaic, and Amarillo.

Chris gets it

I asked Bob Sylvester for his take on Chris Cates and how he accomplishes what he does. Sylvester told me, “Chris gets it. He gets that it’s not about the yeast. It’s not about the malt. It’s about everything. His farmhouse offerings are some of the best I’ve had. Delicate, hop forward, restrained but present yeast profiles with a kiss of Brettanomyces rather than chasing sour.”

I think Bob hits the nail on the head. What Chris Cates accomplishes on his little 3.5-barrel brewing system and basic fermentation set-up is nothing short of fantastic. As I’ve learned through the years, the amount of dollars spent on your brewing equipment bears no relationship to the quality of beer you will produce. Sure, just about any American brewery can produce commercial quality, drinkable beer these days. I’m convinced, however, that truly great American beer comes only from brewers who focus more on beer soul than on beer sales. It takes a holistic approach.

Great beer comes from the heart

Great beers come from a brewer’s heart, not from a business plan. They are created from being in tune with the essence and inner spirit of beer’s core ingredients: malt, yeast, hops and water. In my experience, great beer comes from those who gain a true synchronicity with beer’s living organisms (the little animals of yeast, bacteria, and other critters) and how they meld with the other ingredients to create a magical transformation of the liquid. Some brewers have it; many brewers do not.

Across the Appalachian region, you’ll find little breweries rooted in our hills and hollers, small towns and cities that definitely have the magic touch. Unlike much of America that has become so urban-suburban focused, Appalachian brewers as a group are still closer to the land, closer to nature, than the typical American today. I believe this creates the opportunity for them to be more in tune with the essence of brewing ingredients including with the organisms that ferment the wort into beer.

Visiting Little Animals Brewery

For West Virginia craft beer fans who may be traveling to the Asheville area for a beer-cation, don’t miss stopping on the way in Johnson City. Little Animals Brewery is definitely worth the stop. Beyond taproom drafts, plenty of bottled beer is in stock. Take a few bottles home with you. You can thank me later.

Little Animals Brewery is located in downtown Johnson City and is easy to find. It is open Wednesday through Sunday in the afternoon and evenings. Check its Facebook page for exact hours of operation.

Little Animals Brewery
324 East Main Street
Johnson City, TN