Forget pumpkin beers; Grafs are where it’s at to celebrate Fall on the East Coast!
You may have heard by now that Dock Street Brewing Co and Ploughman Cider have collaborated on a Graf. And you may have thought to yourself, “Neat, gotta try it! But wtf is a Graf?” Allow us to beersplain:
In as few words as possible, a graf is half beer, half cider. That’s it, you’re up to speed.
So what made Dock Street Head Brewer Mark Russell want to give it a try?
“I first heard of a graf years ago after I started at Dock Street West in 2015 and was always intrigued - yet this is still the first graf I've ever tasted let alone brewed,” Russell shares. “Needless to say they aren't a popular American alcohol style. From what I understand, Grafs have an extremely loose definition and the name itself likely didn't exist or certainly wasn't popularized until Stephen King mentioned a malt and cider hybrid in his Dark Tower series (1980s) and called it a Graf.”
Okay, wow. THE most perfect Fall beer/cider bev just got even MORE appropriate for October.
So yeah, Stephen King technically coined the name. “However,” says Russell “the idea of fermenting apple juice and barley wort together is thousands of years old. A lot of farmers made their own beer and cider, and sometimes your neighbor's harvest ends up being better than yours. Well, that year the beer you brew might have a little apple juice thrown in too to make up for the poor barley harvest.”
Unlike many beer styles that have specific guidelines, with a graf, there’s no one right way to do it.
“This history makes for pretty loose style guidelines. Grafs can be 50/50 cider to beer, or more heavily favor one drink over the other. One consistent guideline seems to be that the cider and wort be fermented together, not blended after the fact. Ours is about 70/30 in favor of beer and we fermented it with a blend of our two house ale strains. We lightly hopped and dry hopped with Mosaic and HBC 472, which is an experimental hop with characteristics of oak, coconut, and vanilla cream.”
Dock Street x Ploughman’s Graf is made with a blend of apple varieties - Ben Wenk of Ploughman personally delivered Fuji, Gala, Cameo, Granny Smith, and Goldrush, all of which were used.
