Last year was one of great change for Societe Brewing, which delved into canning in a big way, embraced seasonal beers and expanded distribution beyond San Diego County. This month, the company is adding a new beer to its line-up; one its brewing team invested more research-and-development time than it has put into any previous beer. That includes malt benchmarking trials similar to coffee-cupping sessions and brewing three 20-barrel pilot batches of beer to compare potential yeast strains. The result of that studious process will hit taps and shelves next week when the Kearny Mesa brewery debuts its new…Light Beer?
Societe’s reputation was made on the backs of meticulously crafted San Diego-style IPAs, to-style Belgian and dark ales and, later in its life, precise lagers and award-winning barrel-aged sour ales. They are known as a brewer’s brewery for their respectful adherence to historical brewing practices and desire to be good soldiers in the battle between craft brewers and Big Beer conglomerates. So, their enthusiastic announcement about a new low-calorie, low-carb offering will likely come as something of a surprise to local craft-beer fans, but the origins of the beer are in keeping with the company’s longstanding tenets. Brewing history was considered—American history.
“We wanted to make a beer that felt distinctly American with the goal of paying homage to classic regional American breweries and their confidence in what they were making. Things like ‘premium pale beer’ or ‘world-class ale’ that you would find on those cans were a big inspiration,” says Vice President of Operations Mike Boggess. “Above all, like many of those older breweries, we wanted the name to be exactly what the product was. Many of those beers had simple names referring to the style if they had a name beyond the breweries at all, and we wanted to replicate that feeling.”
The beer’s packaging feels olden-style with little more than a red ribbon runner topped with an all-lower-case “light beer” against a white background. Sales materials bill the new product as being “inspired by the easy-drinking, low-ABV lawnmower beers of yesteryear.” Brewed primarily with pilsner malt and a combo of Sterling and Saaz hops then fermented with a “Kölsch-like yeast strain,” it comes in at 4.5% alcohol-by-volume.
“In a simple beer like this, it’s really easy to have a few strong ingredients overpower the whole of the beer, so it was essential for us to use ingredients that were able to work together to create a sum greater than any one part,” says Boggess. “Light Beer has a balanced body full of cereal and cracker flavors, but it doesn’t get too doughy and cloying. There is room for the hop bite to help bring you to the crisp finish without dominating your mouth.”
For a brewery that has been so vocal about making bold, flavorful beers that harken back to Old World traditions, Light Beer marks a departure from how Societe has done business in the past, but Boggess and company say this beer is meant to complement good times rather than draw focus away from them. When asked about concerns that it could be mistaken for or viewed as a dime-a-dozen beer like those produced by AB-InBev or MolsonCoors, they say they would be proud to capture some of that market share.
“Honestly, we like all kinds of beer and that includes light-drinking beers, too. Those lighter-drinking beers are special to us because they can add to a moment without taking it over,” says Boggess. “A large part of our brand and overall approach to beer is its ability to unify people. We wanted to add a beer to our lineup that appeals to beer drinkers as a whole, not just those steeped in craft-beer tradition. There is something to be said for having a beer from an independent craft brewery that you can share with anyone.”
Even the name bucks convention for the company, which, for the first eight years of its life, named its beers as characters—”The Pupil”, “The Harlot”, “The Coachman”—before abruptly breaking from that last year with monikers such as “World of Wonders”, “Good of the Public” and “Not Enormous”. The latter are issued to Societe’s seasonal releases and reference 19th and early-20th century newspaper headlines.
Coming back to the 21st century, Societe is about to dive deeper into an aspect of the brewing business it’s shied away from in the past: collaboration beers. While Societe’s brewers have participated in collaborative brewing sessions at Southern California breweries over the past year-plus, it takes less than the fingers on one hand to count how many they have hosted. But in 2021, Societe will can a quartet of quarterly collaboration beers brewed at their Kearny Mesa headquarters, starting with an IPA developed in concert with Point Lomas-based Modern Times Beer. That will be available in March, following other specialty releases such as Agreeable Folk IPA in January and a new version of The Bachelor single-hop IPA in February. Also on-tap is a new website that will capture the new elements of this ever-changing, adaptive operation.
Societe Brewing is located at 8262 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard in Kearny Mesa