Kyle Nabilcy
Despite what it sounds like if you know (or think you know) Latin, “solera” has nothing to do with the sun. I don’t even think I know Latin, so the fact that sol can refer to both the sun (as in solar system) and the ground (as in solera) is confusing as hell. But it’s the latter translation that is at the heart of the solera method of aging and blending fermented liquids like wine, spirits, vinegar — and beer.
The solera method takes a batch of fermented liquid — we’ll stick with beer from here on out, but it’s basically the same for all four types mentioned above — and ages it. As a new batch is brewed, part of that batch is blended with part of the old batch. Now you have three different versions.
A new batch gets a little bit of all previous versions blended into it, et cetera, and this is the solera method of creating seriously complex beers, all with a percentage of fresh beer blended with a variety of aged beers. The oldest barrels rest on the ground, with newer barrels stacked atop them, thus the name. Solera: “on the ground” in Spanish.
American Solera, a small brewing and blending operation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, takes its inspiration from the Spanish solera method for aging and blending sherry and other fortified wines. It’s a label that has peeled off of Prairie Artisan Ales in much the same way Perennial Artisan Ales in St. Louis gave rise to Side Project. Both American Solera founder and head brewer Chase Healey and Side Project’s Cory King found so much success in their spin-off ventures that they have little to no connection, respectively, with the breweries from which they launched those ventures.
I used to think about American Solera in the same way I think about Side Project, Chicago’s Off Color, Denver’s Crooked Stave, Austin’s Jester King, and Allagash from Portland, Maine; they’re creative and idiosyncratic breweries that embrace local microbiology and will probably never distribute here.
This is where I typically get pouty, shove my hands in my pockets and kick dirt. But I don’t have to think that way about American Solera anymore, because now, somewhat unexpectedly, it’s here.
BarleyPop Tap and Shop on Atwood Avenue hosted the first American Solera tap event in Madison this last Saturday, with five beers on draft and a small selection of bottled offerings. When BarleyPop owner Jason Hajdik put the taps on a little after 3 p.m., there were barely a handful of people who were there waiting for them. American Solera, after all, is a little niche even in the world of craft beer, and it’s hard to predict what kind of beer nerd is going to hear the dinner bell and start drooling.
But by 4 p.m., when the bottles officially went up for sale (five available to-go, a sixth for on-site consumption only), the floodgates had opened. The first case of bottles to empty was Interplanetary Good Vibes Zone, a Sauvignon Blanc barrel-aged version of the brewery’s Foeder Gold wild ale; this was at 4:30. By 4:41, the cache of on-site bottles of Raspbarrel was exhausted, too. By about 9:30, I was long gone but so were all but two of the tapped beers. It was a good Madison debut for American Solera.
The beers are not just liquid hype, they also have the benefit of being both tasty and interesting. The aforementioned Interplanetary Good Vibes Zone didn’t deliver as much of a wine experience as it did a potent waft of toasted puffed rice, a pleasant nutty sort of aroma that balanced a mild tartness. Foeder Cerise, the other beer to last into the night, was a roundhouse kick of true cherry pucker; I’d last had the 2015 vintage of this beer and found the base beer spoke through the fruit a little better than this fresh version, but it was still delicious and tart.
I would never have expected a fruited sour to last longer than Grisettastone, a piney, minty saison-ish weirdo of a beer, dry-hopped with unspecified hops. It was good, definitely refreshing, with a mild Brett character that may or may not have been intentional. Foederville was dry-hopped with Hallertau Blanc hops, doubling down on the wine character present in a lot of American Solera beers. It’s even more of a hot-weather quencher — holler at me in July.
Even weirder than the Grisettastone was Ryemera, a kvass-style beer (given its bready character made by actual rye bread tossed into the brew). It smelled like pencil erasers at first, but by the bottom of the glass it had warmed to an even nuttier, toastier place than Good Vibes Zone, and was possibly my favorite tap of the day.
I say favorite tap because oh my, the Raspbarrel. Deeply purple-red, almost fuchsia, and with a nose like a literal basket of fresh raspberries and a flavor profile to match, this beer was a stunner from the crack of the cap to the last wistful sip. I just did not want it to end.
But that’s the trick with the solera method. No beer ever truly ends.