New Albion

Imagine you had a friend who said he was going to start a car manufacturing company.  His plan is to build the factory by hand, build the cars by hand, & sell them face-to-face to retailers.  He doesn’t like the way that Ford, Chrysler, & GM build cars, & thinks he can offer drivers something better, more like they engineer them in Europe.  And he’s going to do this on his own, & maybe after a while hire an intern to help him.  He’s going to play ball in a field completely monopolized by the big boys.

You’d think your friend was delusional, or a bigger bullshitter than you’d taken him for.

Next, imagine that your friend actually accomplished what he dreamed of doing – built & sold his own line of automobiles by hand, completely DIY.  The people who drove them loved them, like no other piece of machinery they’d driven in this country.  The company goes under in a few years – unable to expand enough to sustain itself, the curse of an artisanal craftsman.  But then, slowly, this approach is emulated by others.  One here, one there.  Word of mouth travels about this revolutionary new approach to automobile manufacturing, & people catch on that this is what cars are supposed to be about.  Fast forward 35 years, & craft automobiles are the rage.  There’s at least one in each town, & about 100 in Portland.  Small, local “homebuilders” are taking their hobby & passion & opening up their own little factory, making cars full of flavor, & made with real malted barley instead of car adjuncts, & experimenting with bourbon barrel cars, & cars made with wild engines, &…

Okay, so there’s where the analogy goes off the rails.  But this is exactly what Jack McAuliffe, a Navy vet, did when he started New Albion Brewing Company in 1976.  A citizen of Northern California’s homebrewing community, McAuliffe took an underground artform & made a commercial example - “mass-produced” it on his barrel-&-a-half system that he assembled himself using his experience repairing nuclear submarines.  New Albion produced an ale, a stout, & a porter, practically unheard of from stateside brewers.  Also unheard of was forging a business that would “compete” with the big brewers, who by the mid-70s had already grown to gargantuan levels.  McAuliffe’s enterprise only lasted a few years, but showed beer drinkers that it could be done, paving a path for every craft brewing start-up that’s come along since & sowing the seeds of the tremendous craft beer culture in America today.

Boston Beer Company, very much a pioneer in their own right, have resurrected New Albion Ale from the brewing history books, collaborating with McAuliffe on a recipe laid to rest decades ago.  It’s a simple but elegant pale ale, made with the quintessentially American Cascade hops, with a subtle, crisp & biscuity malt profile.  The label is a replication of the original, depicting the sailing vessel of Sir Francis Drake, who claimed territory along the Pacific coast & named it “New Albion”, itself a symbol of exploration & discovery.  The beer itself does not wow the tastebuds by the standards of its progeny, but that’s not the point.  What we have before us is a piece of history, recreated, offering a glimpse of American beer’s past & an opportunity to appreciate how far we’ve come.  American craft beer is about innovation, & this is the first.  This is the taste of ground being broken.