Category Archives: Beer

Sour Beer Fest

Beer, , , ,

I went to the Sour, Lambic & Berlinner Weisse festival at Cajun Cafe on the Bayou in Tampa this weekend.  The flyer listed an impressive selection of sour beer, about half from Florida, about half from Belgium, and a few others (including BFM from Switzerland and Ommegang from New York).  There were also a few other domestic bottles that were not on the program (more on that later).

There were a couple of tables run by shops, with a wide selection of imports.  And there were several local breweries, brewpubs, and homebrew groups with broader selection of their brews.  I think my favorites of the afternoon were:

  • BFM’s Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien (2007): they actually had four years of this brew (2006, 2007, 2009, 2010), with pretty significant differences between the years.  2006 was very funky but not very sour at all.  The 2009 and 2010 bottles were good, with varying sourness, funkiness and other flavors.  But the 2007 was really strong and tart, with just enough funkiness to make it interesting.
  • Hanssens’ Oude Gueuze: There were a several bottles from Hanssens, with various fruits.  But I think the plain gueuze was the best.  A very clean and sour gueuze.
  • 3 Fonteinen’s Schaerbeekse Kriek: This was the one kriek I really wanted to have when we were in Brussels, but couldn’t find.  I was not disappointed to have it at last: it had a great, almost gritty cherry base, with a big tart lambic bite.  Probably the best kriek I’ve had, with a nice combination of cherry and lambic flavors (instead of just having one of them prevail as often happens).
  • Cascade’s Sang Noir: I was really glad to see a few Cascade bottles were there.  This was a very nice, strongly cherry-flavored kriek, with a richness and creaminess that you don’t often see in sour beers.
  • Mikkellers’s Funky E *: The first glass of this I had was terrible and watery — I think it probably fell over in the ice bath.  But they opened up a second bottle and I’m glad I gave it another chance.  It had a nice oakiness, and more malty sweetness than most sours.

Another real treat came just after the second glass of Funky E * — I saw the server pull a bottle of Pliny the Elder out and put it in the ice bath under the counter.  I don’t know if he was planning on sharing, but I said “Hey! I saw that!” and he gave me a glass.  Within a few seconds, a crowd formed and the bottle was soon gone.  It definitely lived up to the reputation as being a very balanced, world-class IPA.  And I was a little amused to see the biggest commotion at the sour fest was for an IPA.

In fact, there were really only two disappointments of the afternoon:

  • I’d never had Berliner Weisse before, and I had several examples from a range of breweries.  I didn’t find any of them better than drinkable, and most of them I poured out.  So I can scratch that style off my list.
  • I didn’t like the offerings from Cigar City (one of the berliner weisses) or Saint Somewhere (a strange refermentation of their Saison Athene).  I generally count on them to make beers I like (and sometimes love), so that was a little sad.

Saison Bottling

Beer, , ,

We bottled our experimental saison mini-batches last night.  Other than almost forgetting the priming sugar, and needing to sterilize a few extra 12 oz. bottles when our 25 oz. bottles were too big for our caps, everything went pretty well.  We had five 1-gallon growlers with different yeast strains, and we didn’t want to cross-contaminate.  So we sterilized our tubing and bottling tip between each batch.  That was time-consuming at first, but we got better with practice.

We started by taking gravity readings of each batch.  Three of the batches (the plain saison yeast, Brett. Bruxellensis and Bret. Lambicus) were all right around the target gravity (1.014).  But the Brett. Claussenii and Belgian Sour Mix batches weren’t quite done (1.018 and 1.020).  But we were done waiting (and they were done bubbling), so we bottled them anyway. We tasted the gravity samples for each batch, and there were definite differences between them.  The plain saison was very dry.  The Brett. batches all had some funkiness to them, though it was hard to tell them apart.

Then we siphoned them straight into a racking tip.  There was a little more loss than with a single big batch, but we wound up with around 4 gallons bottled (6x 22 oz. and 32x 12 oz.).  And it was definitely more bother than doing a single large batch.  But I think it’s worth it for the chance to try a ton of options all at once.

Saison Experiment

Beer, , ,

We have long wanted to brew our own saison.  After all, it’s the style of beer that really opened my eyes to the possibilities of beer and got us more interested in brewing and sampling as much as we could.  But it was only recently when I started reading about saison in the Oxford Companion to Beer that I really understood just how complicated it is.

First of all, while there is a general style of base beer that is the most popular for making saison, you can in fact make sour beer from any base beer.  And then there are several different species of Brettanomyces yeast, each with its own character and intensity.  There are also a couple different kinds of bacteria that sour beer.  And of course, there are a bunch of variables in the souring process, such as when you add Brett./bacteria (primary fermentation, secondary, bottling), or how warm you ferment (Dupont is supposed to ferment at 90°, for example).

So, we found a Saison Dupont clone recipe online that looked about right, and picked up five different vials of yeast: a straight saison yeast, three different Brett. yeasts (B. bruxellensis, B. claussenii, and B. lambicus), and Belgian Sour Mix (with Brett. and bacteria).

This was our second all-grain brew, and it went pretty smoothly.  Our 5-gallon water cooler mash tun didn’t hold temperature, but we kept adding hot water until it was warm enough.  The mash and boil went great, and after adding water to make up five gallons, the gravity was exactly on target (1.057).  We also used fine mesh hop sacks this time instead of cheesecloth, which made for much less gunk to filter out of the wort.

After the boil, we put the wort into our bottling bucket and filled five 1-gallon growlers, one with the Belgian Sour Mix, the second with just regular saison yeast, and the last three with saison yeast and one kind of Brett.  We’re hoping this will help us figure out what kind of saison we want to brew a larger batch of later this summer.  And if everything works out, this should be a great way to try out a bunch of different options in small batches.  There are so many options, especially for mead and cider, and it would be nice to have a good process to try out a lot of options and see what we like.

Cologne

Beer, , , , ,

We took a trip to Cologne last weekend, doing all the tourist things like visiting the cathedral, the Roman-German Museum, the Chocolate Museum, and of course, drinking lots of Kölsch.

Kölsch is a bit of a hybrid beer — brewed with ale yeast, fermented a little cooler than most ales, and then cold-aged like lager.  I think the first time I had it was French Broad’s Gateway Kolsch, which I had on my first trip to Asheville, in 2010.  And since then, I’ve only seen it a few times.  We looked for bottled Kölsch, and were only able to find one that was actually from Cologne.

Luckily, I found the incomparable European Beer Guide page on Cologne, and was able to make a good list of which ones I wanted to try and where to find them.  Most pubs in Cologne serve just one brand of beer (even if they aren’t brewery-owned).  But Cologne is pretty small, and there are pubs all over.  They are mostly family-friendly, so it was easy to work in quite a few in a weekend of seeing the sights with the kids.  Since Kölsch is supposed to be drunk cold, it’s typically served in small, skinny glasses (20cl, about 7 oz.), carried around in a distinctive tray for speedy service.  So it all adds up to a pretty pleasant pub crawl town.

My favorite Kölsch is probably Früh Kölsch.  We had a nice, sausage-heavy lunch, tempered with tender white asparagus and sauerkraut, at Früh’s pub Früh am Dom.  The pub is just off the cathedral square, and looks like a normal scale pub from the front, but expands a long way back and downstairs.  It’s nice and cozy throughout.  Their Kölsch is very mild and clean, with just a little sweetness and not much hop bitterness.  For a sweeter version, they serve Radler, a shandy made with their Kölsch and lemon soda.  I didn’t like this quite as much as the straight Kölsch, but it was very light and refreshing, with some bitter lemon peel flavor to keep it from being sickly sweet.  It was pleasant but not hot in mid-May, but I can imagine the Radler being very nice when summer starts heating up.

A close runner-up would be Pfaffen Kölsch.  Their bar is in the Heumarkt square, just around the corner from our hotel.  I went there twice, but never actually made it inside, since there was a crowd out front enjoying the nice weather at all hours.  The service was very quick, with a waiter coming and going with the typical tray of tall, skinny glasses at all times.  Their Kölsch is pretty malty, a little reedy, and nicely light and refreshing.

Lower on my list is Mühlen Kölsch from Malzmühle.  You can see their pub from Pfaffen, at the other end of the Heumarkt.  But a couple of roads and a tram station lie in the way, making it a bit of a trek at the best of times.  There was also a Pirate Party rally going on in the square, and a cluster of cops on motorcycles, making it even harder than usual to get through the traffic.  Once inside, the pub was nice enough, though not as cozy as Früh am Dom.  Though it was hard to get to, it was very busy — in fact, it was the only place we had trouble getting a table.  I found their Kölsch a little disappointing — definitely hoppier than most, dry, and astringent.

I also liked Gilden Kölsch more than average.  Their pub on the Heumarkt was much more modern and spacious than most, but still ran back from the front quite a bit, and into the basement.  Unlike most of pubs we went to, the only antique thing in Gilden was the barrel of Kölsch on the bar.  Their Kölsch is mild, with a bit of herbal hoppiness.

My least favorite Kölsch was definitely Gaffel Kölsch.  Quite a few of the restaurants had Gaffel banners, and I had a large glass (40cl, but still the same shape) with dinner, and found it bland and lagery.  I also didn’t care for Peters Kölsch, which was very dry and hoppy (and now contract brewed).  Though it probably doesn’t help that they were badly understaffed and it took me 10 minutes to get a glass.

We also had some non-Kölsch beers — some Franziskaner Hefeweizen on the train, and a very nice Paulaner Kristalweizen (I think the first kristalweizen I’ve had) with lunch.  Since it’s filtered hefeweizen, it was pretty much the same as a hef, but without the cloudiness or yeasty character.  It went perfectly with juicy grilled chicken tacos.  And at the Chocolate Museum, we picked up a bottle of Strubbe Chocolat — kind of an amber ale with a definite chocolate flavor.  Not something I’d go out of my way for, but an interesting novelty beer.

Trappist breweries are irritated about US “Trappist” brews

Beer, ,

Apparently the Trappists are irritated that there are a lot of American beers with the word “Trappist” in their names:

The fact that a number of breweries in the USA are using the word Trappist to describe beers that are clearly not produced by Trappist monks has drawn the attention of the International Trappist Association, or I.T.A. The Association considers it a growing problem. For one thing, they don’t like the idea that a consumer might mistake a commercially brewed American beer for an Authentic Trappist brew.

Though I have some sympathy for their frustration, I think the bigger problem is that Americans don’t know what “Trappist” means.  Forget getting confused about whether a beer is made by Trappist monks or not, before I started researching Belgian beer for my trip I didn’t know that there were monks making beer for public consumption, much less associate that with “Trappist”.

Via BeerPulse.

Dutch Lager Tasting

Beer, , ,

I was in the mood for something new, but Bert’s in Utrecht was closed, and we’ve had a few bottles from our local beer shop that seemed off (pouring Trappist quad down the drain is pretty painful).  So on a lark, I picked up some half liter cans of the popular Dutch lagers at the grocery store, and we did a tasting (in order of cost):

Albert Heijn Pilsener: This store-brand pilsener was the cheapest of the batch (€0.57/can).  Also the most different from the pack.  It had more color and body than I expected from cheap lager.

Bavaria Pilsener: Not really much “there” there, for this mid-range (€0.67/can) lager.

Amstel Lager: Not Amstel Light (commonly available in the US), but Heineken’s mid-market lager.  A little grassy, and something elusive in the aroma.

Heineken Lager: This is the main premium (€0.91/can) lager here, and obviously the most famous worldwide.  Much more inoffensive in cans, since it’s not lighstruck and skunky as is typical with their trademark green bottles.

Grolsch Premium Lager: Probably my favorite of the bunch, but still pretty bland.

Hertog Jan Naturzuiver: This is the “ultra-premium” (€1.23/can) lager, which we often see at nicer restaurants.  Not noticeably better than Heineken and Grolsch.

So, I think my main conclusion from the tasting is that I’m an ale snob, spoiled by an ample supply of strong, interesting, artisanal beer, and the mild, mass-produced lagers just can’t keep up.  But I was also surprised at how much more I liked Heineken from the can than from bottles.  Although I’m generally a big fan of bottles, this makes we think I should go for cans over at least green and clear bottles.

Brouwerij de Molen

Beer, , ,

We went to visit Brouwerij de Molen in Bodegraven today.  Their brewery and restaurant are located in an old windmill on the bank of the Old Rhine.  It was a bright, clear day with puffy white clouds floating by. So we sat on the terrace even though it was a little chilly, with the windmill towering above us.

Brouwerij de MolenWe started with their lighter beers: Jaar & Dag (Year & A Day) and Licht & Lustig (Light & Lusty).  Year and A Day is listed as a saison, but it doesn’t have the expected sourness.  But it does have a fuller body than most saison, balanced with nicely mellow hoppiness.  Light & Lusty is a much more straightforward hefeweizen, with a nice haze and grainy astringency.

Their lunch menu is a little limited, but we were able to find good choices, even for the kids.  Everything was great, even their croquettes (I have found these to be barely passable at some other places, but their filling was very creamy, almost like a nice pot pie).  So we hung around for dessert (nicely spiced apple tart) and stout: Hemel & Aarde (Heaven & Earth) and Nacht & Ostij (I’ve seen this translated as “Ungodly Hours”, but our waiter said “Monkey Business”).  Whatever the translation, the Nacht & Ostij was a very nice, creamy stout.  It has a good, strong sweetness without being cloying or syrupy.  But the Heaven & Earth was truly amazing.  It’s made with peated malt and aged in Bruichladdich whisky barrels.  The result is a rich, velvety smokiness.  Left to my own devices, I could spend an afternoon with my nose in a snifter of this one.

After lunch, I paid a visit to their beer shop (which they nicely opened just for me).  In addition to a full selection of their own beers, they also had a ton of foreign beers, including a good selection from Mikkeller, Hoppin’ Frog, Southern Tier, Saranac, Smuttynose and even a few bottles from Cigar City (Guava Grove and Jai Alai).  I resisted the temptation to get much American beer, since I’m going back the the US in less than a month.  Instead I got a few bottles from Mikkeller, and of course a few of the de Molen beers.  Alas, neither of the stouts we enjoyed are available in bottles, but I did get a bottle of Tsarina Esra aged in Cognac barrels, which I’m really looking forward to.

Weisse Roundup

Beer, , , ,

As the weather turns a little warmer, our thoughts are turning to lighter beers.  We’re also planning on making a trip to Germany in a few weeks, so naturally we’ve been drinking Bavarian hefeweizen, aka weissbier.  As it turns out, we’re going to Cologne not Munich.  But we can’t find much Kolsch in shops (other than the very nice Früh), so we’ll just have to work on that when we get there.  Weisse, on the other hand, is available everywhere, from the specialty beer shops to the grocery store, and even on the train.

Our favorite is probably the Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier — it has a little more character than your average hef, fruity and even a little sour.  Their Dunkel is also very good, nutty and a little dry.

We also quite liked Weihenstephaner Vitus (a stronger weizenbock), which was malty and creamy, while retaining the usual grassy weisse notes, with just a hint of herbs to round it out.

For a straightforward, no-nonsense weisse, my favorite is definitely Löwenbräu LöwenWeisse.  It’s sweet and grassy, light and refreshing, and I can imagine happily drinking it by the liter in a tent somewhere.

Of the other weissbiers we’ve had recently, the most striking thing about them is their consistency. We’ve been drinking mostly Belgian beer lately, and it’s easy to forget what a well-defined style is like, with beer after beer hitting all the standard notes, with only small differences. This means they’re all pretty good. On the downside, however, there’s much less excitement with these beers – very little chance of getting a surprisingly  outstanding beer. Wind has taken to calling weissbeir the “merlot of beers” – never terrible, but never fantastic, either

I’ve also been reading through the Oxford Companion to Beer, which talks about Germany’s very traditional brewery apprenticeship program and speculates that this might be why German breweries tend to stick with traditional styles and fine-tune their recipes, rather than experiment more widely (or wildly) like the Americans, or even the Belgians.

In any event, the rest of the lot are all perfectly good.  Based on our experience, I’d trust pretty much any German wheat beer to be good and conform to style.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Beer, ,

So I wasn’t having much luck calling Westvleteren — I’d be embarrassed to tally up all the time I spent dialing over and over, getting a variety of busy signals.  But finally, I got through.  The process of making a reservation was very quick and easy — you tell them your license plate number, and pick one of three days available to come pickup.  I’d read online that they will sometimes be flexible for out-of-country visitors, but that wasn’t the case for me.  So the call was over in about a minute.  Only then did it really hit me that I had pretty much given up on getting through, and was now very excited to finally have a reservation.

The drive out to Westvleteren went very smoothly.  I’d made the drive before, so I knew pretty much where I was going (and I had a GPS to help me once I got off the highway and had to navigate the last few crazy miles of twisty, narrow roads right around the abbey).  The flat, green fields rolled by, punctuated with windmills both ancient and modern.  My route took me through historic towns I’d heard about in school, like Antwerp, Ghent, and Ypres.

I got to Westvleteren around noon and had a small lunch at the abbey’s cafe, In De Vrede. It was still more than an hour until my pickup time, so I decided that I’d do the recommended 7km walk around the abbey, even though it was a little windy and overcast.  We’d done the first part of the walk last time, down a nice tree-lined lane to a little grotto shrine at the corner of the abbey property.  Then the path led through some woods and out to the fields beyond.  Of course by now the wind had picked up and it had started to rain.  But I pressed on, and the wind blew harder and harder until it was literally blowing my hat off my head and down the street.  Nobody else was in sight, except a large black dog (looked like an American bulldog, but I’m really not up on my Belgian dog breeds).  I fought back a brief moment of panic when I thought about what would happen if he attacked me out here in the middle of nowhere with no one around, and just ignored him and walked past.

After completing the circuit, the Westvleteren beer shop was open and a few cars had already pulled in.  I asked if I had to wait for my scheduled time, and they told me I could come right then.  So I pulled up and found a stack of empties and a couple stacks of Westy 8, all in their traditional wooden crates.  I tossed my two crates in my trunk, and headed inside to the counter to pay my €96.  That’s obviously pretty expensive, but it’s about 1/7th the price you see in shops (and I’ve never seen a whole case, let alone two, in a shop).  And 10 minutes later, I was on my way home.

The trip back was a lot less fun.  It rained most of the way, and there was a gnarly accident two cars ahead of me.  I didn’t see how it happened, I just saw a little hatchback slide out from around the front of a semi, completely sideways, still zooming down the freeway at 120kph (75mph).  Luckily, everybody was able to stop and I don’t think there were any secondary accidents.  And the little hatchback was able to drive off.  The traffic was heavy pretty much the rest of the way home, but luckily just in the ordinary, boring way.

So, we are now the proud owners of two crates of Westy 8.  I look forward to getting the crates and as many of the bottles as possible home.  On a purely objective level, I have to admit it’s a little ridiculous to drive to the next country and spend almost €100 on a couple cases of beer.  But I have to admit it was a pretty entertaining experience.  And the beer really is quite good.