‘CRAFT BREWING AND MARIJUANA HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY CLOSELY CONNECTED’
world of hops has opened up,” Bensch said.
That world is rooted in a familiar relationship: Marijuana and hops — the flowers that impart bitterness, aroma and flavor to beer — both belong to the Cannabaceae plant family. Many varieties of marijuana and hops share aromatic signatures, from citrusy to resinous.
“Craft brewing and marijuana have always been very closely connected,” said Tony Magee, founder and chairman of Lagunitas Brewing Co., in Petaluma, Calif. “There’s something about craft brewing that’s essentially part of the counterculture.”
Lagunitas, founded in 1993, has long championed cannabis. It calls its experimental beers the One Hitter Series, referring to a small marijuana pipe. Its copper ale was renamed Censored in 2002 after the federal government banned a proposed label for Kronik, a variation on a cannabis nickname.
Since California legalized recreational use of marijuana last January, Lagunitas (now owned by Heineken) has entered the cannabis marketplace with Hi-fi Hops, a collaboration between the brewery and cannabis-extract manufacturer Cannacraft. Released in July, the drink is a hopped sparkling water infused with THC and packaged in 12-ounce bottles.
Hi-fi Hops comes in several different strengths and is sold only in marijuana dispensaries, where cannabis drinks accounted for $58 million in nationwide sales last year, according to the firms Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics. That may seem minuscule compared with overall U.S. beer sales — $111 billion last year, according to the Brewers Association — but Magee is playing the long game.
“There’s a generational change happening that’s taking the handcuffs off marijuana,” said Magee, who envisions a future in which beer and marijuana are sold on a level playing field. “I think THC beverages will be competitors for beer.”
That may require transforming Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana. “Right now, there isn’t a socially acceptable way to consume cannabis with friends and family,” said Keith Villa, who retired this year from Millercoors, where, as head brewmaster, he created the influential Blue Moon Belgian White.
He hopes to change that. In March, Villa announced the creation of Ceria Beverages, a company in Arvada, Colo., that will make nonalcoholic craft beers infused with small doses of THC. The first, a Belgian-style white ale called Grainwave, will go on sale in Colorado dispensaries in mid-december, with 5 milligrams of THC (a standard amount for edibles like gummies) per 10-ounce bottle.
“People should be able to drink our beers and experience the onset in about eight or nine minutes, which is similar to alcohol,” Villa said. The goal is enjoyment, not inebriation. “You can easily have a couple of bottles while watching the Yankees game.”
Beer makers have also been wooed by cannabidiol, or CBD, the nonintoxicating cannabis byproduct that has become a darling of the wellness industry, billed as a remedy for pain, anxiety, acne and depression.
An early and prominent proponent of Cbd-infused beer is Coalition Brewing, of Portland, Ore. In 2016, the brewery released the bitter, citrusy Two Flowers IPA, containing hemp juice and 4 milligrams of CBD per 12-ounce serving. (It removed the hemp juice after federal rules changed.)
The company said it was eager to explore the biological similarities between hops and cannabis, and highlight their crossover aromatics and flavors. “We did not want to make a gimmick beer,” said Phil Boyle, the general manger and an owner. “We wanted to make a beer that could stand by itself, irrespective if it had CBD or not.”
Simply adding CBD to beer may not guarantee sales. “If I’m a user of CBD, I’m probably not looking for it in an alcoholic beverage,” said Chris Furnari, editor of Brewbound, which covers the beer industry. “It’s similar to looking for protein in your vodka or beer.”
Coalition has altered its formulations several times to comply with changing laws. In March, the federal government ordered Long Trail Brewing Co., in Vermont, to stop sales of a Cbd-infused beer called Medicator because nonstandard beer ingredients such as hemp require special approval. A similar fate befell Black Hammer Brewing in San Francisco; in May, it ceased production of its CBD beers.
The federal government also forbids brewers to add THC to products produced at their breweries. So for its Hi-fi Hops, Lagunitas ships its hop-infused water to another company, Absolutextracts (a division of Cannacraft), which doses it with THC and packages it under the Lagunitas name.
There’s always a fear that brewers will undercut their own products, but Bensch doesn’t believe that cannabis will cannibalize beer sales.
“We think the drinker and the cannabis consumer are the same person,” Bensch said. “There’s no reason they can’t smoke a joint and drink a beer at the same time.”