Bennett: Gunwhale Ales beer balances nautical and nice
It’s hard for breweries to find a sense of place. Unlike wine or coffee, which rely for flavor on the whims of the soil and climate in which the beans or grapes are grown, beer is a completely man-made product, its final taste mostly a testament to the skills of the brewer.
But as experimentalism seeps into a growing craft beer industry here in Orange County, newcomer Gunwhale Ales has found a unique way to express its terroir.
Inspired by its location in a city that straddles land and sea, the 3-month-old Costa Mesa brewery uses a sense of place to drive its entire concept, from taproom design to beer recipes. So far, the latter has resulted in a steady array of approachable yet complex, if hard to categorize, beers that straddle the domain between Belgian farmhouse tradition and beachy West Coast sass.
Offerings like Bait Ball (an IPA given a heavier body with oat and rye) and Barno (an oak-fermented rye saison dry-hopped with the citrusy New Zealson hop Nelson) exemplify this signature style.
“Our beer is about balance,” says co-founder Justin Miller, who was the executive chef at Pizzeria Ortica for seven years before he quit in the weeks leading up to Gunwhale’s opening last November. “Too many beers these days have one dominant flavor that jumps out at you, and while they’re good, you can’t drink that much of it. It’s like food — you want balance.”
The idea of building an entire brewery’s lineup around finding balance in the stylistic fusion of rustic Belgian farmhouse ales (think: saisons) and the hop bombs found in Southern California (think: every IPA ever) is so uncommon that Gunwhale created a new term for its Old World-meets-New World brews: “coastal ales.”
For Miller — a beer nerd who used to home brew but now leaves Gunwhale’s beer-making duties to head brewer Derek Testerman — leaving the fast-paced restaurant world to finally sling his company’s coastal ales is the culmination of a three-year journey, during which he and the other co-founders, J.T. Wallace and Bobby Fitzgerald, literally built Gunwhale from scratch.
Wallace, a Newport Beach native like Miller, has a manufacturing background and personally constructed many of the wooden tables, chairs and wall decorations in the industrial-park tasting room, as well as facilitated the placement of fermentation tanks and oak barrels in the relatively small warehouse space in back (there isn’t an actual brewery on site; Testerman brews 10-barrel batches at Anaheim’s Backstreet Brewing several times a week). Fitzgerald, who lives in San Diego, is the mastermind behind Gunwhale’s subtly nautical branding, which is as versatile as it is eye-catching.
Together, they crafted a curated space for beer drinking so full of farm charm, outdoorsman stateliness and beach-bum hippie whimsy that it’s almost hard to go back to the minimalist “communal table in a brewhouse” taproom stereotypes (cold brew and kombucha are even on tap).
“We saw an opportunity with our tasting room to do something that’s comfortable and unique so we can maybe bring in different people than just beer people,” Miller says.
Given Miller’s background at one of O.C.’s top restaurants, it should come as no surprise that in addition to beer people, Gunwhale also easily attracts food people.
Unlike many craft beers, which are built for chugging by the pint at a bar, Gunwhale’s coastal ales are perfect for sipping with food. In fact, the lightest thing on draft right now is a 4.0% ABV hoppy table beer, a dry “coastal” take on the style born out of Belgium’s fondness for drinking bottles of flavorful, light-alcohol beer with every meal (it’s the equivalent of a table wine in Italy or France).
Other than a double IPA (meaty but somehow still balanced) that tops out at 8.3% ABV, all of Gunwhale’s beers are supremely sessionable. (A “session beer” is low in alcohol and can be consumed in large quantities without leading to excessive intoxication.) The unfiltered, sometimes-barrel-aged styles themselves are also friendly starters for palates that are perhaps unaccustomed to the intense flavors favored by contemporary brewers.
Highly nuanced, wine-like beers like Gunwhale’s are usually found on the outer fringes of the beer industry, made by small operations like Monkish in Torrance or as part of nerdy side projects that, with barrels stacked to the sky, look more akin to wineries (see: Bruery Terreux and Beachwood Blendery). If you want the beers at home, you’ll normally have to buy them in a large-format wine bottle with a cork and cage top that elevates the product even more.
Not so at low-key Gunwhale, which currently only sells its beer at the taproom in 32-ounce growler cans called crowlers. The first packaged releases, Miller says, will also be in cans.
“We want to do these cool complex flavors in a can,” Miller says. “Take it and go hiking with it, take it to the beach, drink it when it’s a hot day.”
It’s only been open a few months, but Gunwhale is already looking forward, experimenting with the next round of coastal ales. The brewery’s first sour beers are aging in 10 wine barrels housed in a temperature-controlled room just off the taproom; and a large oak fermenting vessel called a foeder is filled with beer that will be ready at the end of spring.
During a recent visit, Testerman, Wallace and Miller were busy pureeing 150 pounds of kumquats purchased from a local produce supplier. The fruit was destined for a special one-off batch of Chickabiddy, the table beer.
Miller’s culinary influence will undoubtedly creep in soon too. He’s already looking into contacting a heritage grain supplier he knew from his chef days to order some smokey green farro to experiment with. And with Miller eventually interested in getting back in a kitchen, there are opportunities to add on everything from a food truck to a brewpub. (“Right now is just phase one,” he assures.)
For now, the taproom is a must-visit, TV-free zone where you can sip on a range of beers with a clearly defined sense of place. Using the Wild West-by-the-sea history of Orange County as its base, Gunwhale makes liquid representations of its prime location — where idyllic farmland meets the rough, wild sea.
“[The tasting room] is a place to have a beer and talk to the person next to you. We’ll never have a TV. We don’t have any board games,” says Miller, acknowledging amenities that many other brewery tasting rooms have.
“We’re not trying to be the opposite of everyone else. We’re just trying to chart our own path.”
Gunwhale Ales is at 2960 Randolph Ave., Unit A, Costa Mesa. Information: (949) 393-2537, gunwhaleales.com.
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SARAH BENNETT is a freelance journalist covering food, drink, music, culture and more. She is the former food editor at L.A. Weekly and a founding editor of Beer Paper L.A. Follow her on Twitter @thesarahbennett.