1 of 5
Head Brewer Brian Mandeville of Fine Creek Brewing Co., with foraged sassafras leaves used in the brewery’s Allegheny Highlands farmhouse ale (Photo by Daniel White courtesy The Nature Conservancy)
2 of 5
The team from Fine Creek Brewing Co. collects sassafras leaves at the Nature Conservancy’s Warm Springs Mountain Preserve. (Photo by Daniel White courtesy The Nature Conservancy)
3 of 5
Foraging for sassafras (Photo by Daniel White courtesy The Nature Conservancy)
4 of 5
Sassafras leaves steeped as part of the brewing process at Fine Creek Brewing Co. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
5 of 5
Graphic elements from this poster appear on the label for Fine Creek’s Allegheny Highlands farmhouse ale. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
Last month, the team at Fine Creek Brewing Co. went on a field trip. Trekking three hours west of their Powhatan brewing operation to Warm Springs in Bath County for an overnight camping excursion, complete with a fireside dinner of freshly foraged chanterelles cooked in cast iron, they had been hoping to score an abundance of the fungi for a special beer release — but Mother Nature had other plans.
“Mushrooms can be fickle, so if that didn’t work out, our plan B was always sassafras; partially because of the prescribed burn program that they do there, it grows in an absurd abundance,” says Fine Creek Head Brewer Brian Mandeville.
Collecting bags and bags of the leaves, Fine Creek’s small crew returned to Powhatan with over 40 pounds of sassafras, destined for a Norwegian farmhouse ale. They rely only on the leaves, which when brewed resemble cooked collard greens and smell like herbal tea.
While sassafras is perhaps best known for giving root beer its notes of vanilla flavor, Mandeville says of the leaves, “They have a really intense fruity, maybe also tropical-y flavor. If you crush them, there’s a soft citrus note and maybe a hint lemon, but a strong fruity character.”
Dubbed Allegheny Highlands, the easy-drinking farmhouse ale is set to debut at the end of this month, one of four special Virginia-based beer releases through The Nature Conservancy’s OktoberForest program. A global initiative that launched in the state last year, the program works to promote healthy forests by connecting breweries with nearby conservation efforts.
“Beer is 95% water; 50% of our water is filtered through forests,” says Kelley Galownia of The Nature Conservancy. “The whole idea behind [OktoberForest] is to help people understand how important forests are to water quality.”
Galownia says that a couple of years ago, The Nature Conservancy got a request from an unlikely source: a brewer. After reading an article about the conservancy’s efforts to restore a pine tree habitat, Josh Chapman, co-founder of Black Narrows Brewing Co. in Chincoteague, pitched a plan.
“He said he was interested in making a beer out of longleaf pine needles and asked us if he could come out to Piney Grove Preserve in Sussex and forage for the ingredients, and that’s where this whole idea got started,” Galownia says. “The beer was so good, people got excited about it, so they thought maybe we can do this in our forest signature landscapes and partner with different breweries that are doing great work and using local ingredients.”
Looking to align itself with breweries that practice a similar ethos — smaller scale operations, a focus on foraging and an appreciation for nature — The Nature Conservancy reached out to Fine Creek.
“My family is from Georgia, and we grew up gathering black walnuts,” says Mandeville, whose resume includes roles at Norfolk’s O’Connor Brewing Co. and Fullsteam Brewery in Durham, North Carolina. “When I started thinking about my approach to brewing, I think beer historically really has the ability to tell a story, [give a] sense of place, and evoke those flavors and aromas. I always feel like beer provides this really easy story.”
Also part of the Virginia OktoberForest quartet of breweries is Scott’s Addition’s Väsen Brewing Co., whose team traveled to the Eastern Shore to forage eelgrass (the Nature Conservancy manages the world’s largest and most successful seagrass restoration program) for its Barrier Island gose. Sterling’s Crooked Run Fermentation collected red spruce tips from restoration sites for its Clinch Valley saison, and Black Narrows used longleaf pinecones, branches and needles picked from the southeastern corner of the state as the foundation for its Piney Grove IPA.
Carefully collected by hand, the wild ingredients in each beer serve as an expression of Virginia’s varied and beautiful land and waterways. On tap at the participating breweries, the respective beers — whose labels feature signature landscapes of the commonwealth — can also be found in Richmond at retailers including Ellwood Thompson’s and Stella’s Grocery.
For those looking for a weekend adventure and to sample all four with nature as the backdrop, Black Narrows Brewing Co. is hosting OktoberForest Fest on Sept. 30 (other Richmond-area breweries attending include Benchtop, a Norfolk brewery with a Richmond taproom; Garden Grove Brewing Company & Urban Winery; and Tabol Brewing). But no matter where it’s experienced, Mandeville says, the mission remains the same.
“The truth is, maybe people won’t want to hear me talk about black walnuts and sassafras, but if you put a beer in front of them that they enjoy, then being able to have those conversations is much easier because they’re now curious and able to understand it better,” he says. “The hope is that it provides that bridge to kind of reconnect people to stuff that grows all around us that we often lose sight of.”
