Top Shelf Thursday: June 2013, California

Another Top Shelf Thursday has come & gone.  We’d had some requests for a menu that would satisfy the hopheads, but didn’t exactly want to do ten IPAs back-to-back (palate fatigue, anyone?).  We decided to do a spotlight on California, arguably the nation’s best beer state.  This focus would, naturally, include some great hop-heavy ales while also showing some of the versatility of the Golden State’s brewers.  California, here we come!

We landed in California via Belgium, starting things off with Russian River’s Redemption, a pale abbey-style single.  A style rarely seen & traditionally brewed by monks as their “house beer”, Russian River’s example was light, effervescent, & dry with some solid bready notes.  Orchard White, from The Bruery, offered a twist on a Belgian-style witbier, incorporating lavender into the traditional mix of wheat, coriander, & orange peel.  This seemed to be a surprise hit of the evening - far from gimmicky, the lavender blended superbly with the other seasonings, emphasizing the citrus & lending a smooth airiness that really elevated this elegant style.  These two subtle, well-executed beers showed that Cali brewers can really nail Belgian styles.

We ventured into solidly west coast territory with a slew of hopped-up ales, beginning with the classic AleSmith IPA.  AleSmith hits it out of the park with this no-frills IPA, full of citrus & a little pine flavor, bright & buoyant, not overwhelming or destroying the tastebuds.  The collaboration between Sierra Nevada & Delaware’s Dogfish Head, dubbed “Rhizing Bines”, presented an unusual flavor & aroma for a double IPA.  Atypically sweet with notes of mint & anise, some found this one a little challenging, possibly from dry-hopping with an experimental hop breed HB 644.  One guest said it smelled like pet store (not that that’s anything wrong with that!).  Hangar 24’s Double IPA hit more familiar notes.  In addition to more traditional “C” hops, it uses Citra for a fruity character & Simcoe for that underlying “cattiness”, as well as orange blossom honey.  Everyone expected Ballast Point’s Dorado to be one hoppy monster based on the description of its process – it’s mash-hopped, first wort-hopped, kettle-hopped, & dry-hopped.  What they found was that, while having an assertive hop presence, it was pretty well-balanced & did not kill the palate.  And rounding off the foray into IPAs was Port Brewing’s Anniversary Ale.  Described as an ‘Imperial Pale Ale’, it had a resiny, dank bitterness & citrusy hop flavor that stood up well to the 10% ABV, & received accolades from many in attendance. 

As always, there were some who went into the “IPA movement” of the tasting with some prejudice, but left with a little more appreciation of what this family of ales has to offer.  Nonetheless, everyone was happy to try the next: the Class of ’88 Barleywine, from North Coast in collaboration with Deschutes & Rogue.  Both team effort & history lesson, it gave a pleasing, malty respite from the gauntlet of hopped-up beers we’d just tasted.  AleSmith once again proved that they can brew an excellent Belgian-style ale, with the 2012 edition of their Decadence anniversary ale.  An abbey-style quadruple, it gave off rich, warming notes of raisin, fig, rum, & chocolate, & was surprisingly smooth for 12% ABV.  And capping off the evening was The Bruery’s Rye Barrel-Aged Smoking Wood, a smoked rye imperial porter aged in rye whiskey barrels (whew!).  A complex beer that could’ve easily been an unwieldy mess, The Bruery nailed it with a smooth & full-bodied blend of smoke, roast, & spicy oak character that meshed instead of competing.

Being that America’s craft beer movement was born in California, it only makes sense that such a variety of bold & innovative beers are being made there today, & we really saw the quality & versatility of some of the state’s top brewers.  There are many, many more where they came from – we sampled just eight out of over 400 in the state!  But these beers are more evidence again that the US is truly the best place to be for beer right now.  Hope you can join us next month!

The Mysteries of Lambic

Lambic’s that girly beer, right?  That sweet, syrupy, berry-flavored beer-that-doesn’t-taste-like-beer?  Served in a flute for your girlfriend/wife when you want to impress her, or there are no wine coolers available?  And all lambic has a pink head, right?  NO!  First of all, stop being so sexist & condescending.  And B, there’s waaay more to the world of lambics than that ubiquitous raspberry example whose name everyone mispronounces (yeah, you’re supposed to say the ‘s’).  Nothing against Brouwerij Lindemans – they make a damn good sweetened lambic if that’s what you seek.  But the larger drinking community has been given a biased view of what lambic can be based on the commercial success of just one example.   

In truth, many lambics are complex, rustic, organic beers.  One using more flowery language might call them romantic, enigmatic, mystical.  They are fascinating examples of a near-extinct method of producing beer, one that invites & incorporates the environment rather trying to wrest control from it & shut it out.  The hot side of brewing a lambic is its own ball of strange, as lambic brewers use a large proportion of unmalted wheat in a turbid mash, creating a thick, goopy wort that’s barely filtered.  That’s right: lambics are wheat beers.  And instead of the fresh hops on which most brewers put a premium, lambic brewers used aged hops.  It’s still not clear to me why this is practiced; aged hops lose their bright character, turning cheesy & hay-like, but these notes are boiled off in the kettle anyway.  The popular reasoning is that lambic brewers are just interested in the preservative qualities of the hops, but my hunch is that the practice started out of necessity & has continued by tradition without anyone really knowing why.  Again, just a hunch.  After mashing, lambics go through a looong boil – we’re talking five or six hours, a stay in the kettle usually reserved for the biggest malt-monsters, which lambics certainly are not. 

When the wort hits the cool side, the magic starts.  The hot wort is pumped into a large, shallow, rectangular vessel known as a koelschip (“cool ship”), usually right under the brewery’s vented roof.  Overnight, the wort cools & the vents usher in the area’s native microflora – wild yeast & bacteria - who camp out in the delicious, sugary liquid.  When the wort is good & inhabited, it’s transferred to open wooden casks where it ages, allowing the zoo of microscopic critters to gorge itself.  Really, it’s more like a rain forest than a zoo, with its own ecosystem of bugs: species of enteric bacteria, lactic bacteria, saccharomyces, brettanomyces, acetobacter, kloeckera, & who knows what else.  Each of them have their go at the wort in their own time, some taking months to fully develop & metabolize – it’s a fascinating process if you’re into microbiology!  The lambic develops alcohol, acidity, & all sorts of funky, complex flavors: tart lemon, vinegar, fruitiness, vinous flavors, that famous barnyard/horse blanket character. 

One can argue that lambic is never really “finished” fermenting, but once it reaches a certain point – at least a year – it is blended with different vintages & bottle-conditioned to create gueuze, or refermented with fruit to create kriek, framboise, peche, etc., sweetened to create faro or more commercial lambics, or bottled as a straight lambic.  These funky beers are indigenous to the Senne River Valley in Belgium, & there is some controversy as to whether they can be produced elsewhere.  Many old school lambic breweries, protective of their craft, say no; others (including the brewer of Cantillon), have encouraged American brewers to try their own hand at spontaneously-fermented, eco-inclusive brews.  Allagash has had success with their own coolship – watch a video of their endeavor here.  We at House of 1000 Beers are thrilled to carry some great examples of both sweetened & “traditional” lambics, such as St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition, Oud Beersel Framboise, & Lindemans Cuvee Rene on the dry side, & the Lindemans & Timmermans lines on the sweet.  We’ve recently had some of the big names of lambic grace our shelves as well, from Belgium’s esteemed Cantillon & Drie Fonteinen breweries.  These beers are terrific paired with some funky washed-rind or blue cheeses, their close cousins in the food family tree.  And it shouldn’t come as surprise that they’re not cheap, given the time & care put into these sensitive brews.  There’s an occasion for the sweet, viscous  fruit lambics you can find on tap at most good beer bars, but there’s a whole other dimension to these wild beers.

Top Shelf Thursday: May 2013, The Tart & the Horsey

Another group gathered for our monthly Top Shelf Thursday tasting this past week, sampling ten beers that are a little off the beaten path.  We had enough response to The Sour & The Funky tasting during Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week a month ago that we decided to reprise the theme of sour & wild ales this time around, for those whose schedules or budgets prohibited them from attending the main event, or those who might have just wanted more.  Though the brews featured ran the spectrum from very sour to surprisingly sweet, the criterion for inclusion was that the beer be fermented with some agent instead of or in addition to saccharomyces, the yeast used to ferment most ales & lagers.  This could be some combination of the “wild” yeast brettanomyces (brett), or souring bacteria.  Brewers achieve this by intentionally pitching these “bugs”, through spontaneous fermentation (such as lambic brewers use), or aging in barrels with known micro-inhabitants.

Things got going with a trio of wheat-based beers, each very different from the next.  The first was Whiteout from Anchorage Brewing, a Belgian-style witbier made with lemon peel, black peppercorn, & coriander & aged in French chardonnay barrels with brett.  It was light & spicy, with just a touch of tartness & hints of vanilla & oak that gave this familiar style an interesting twist.  The Reserve Wheat from Telegraph Brewing delivered a more assertive sourness.  Based on the sour German wheat style Berliner weisse, the Reserve Wheat was rounded out by the addition of lemon verbena, a shrub with a strong lemon scent.  One of the more challenging offerings was the Gueuze Fond Tradition from Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck, a blend of multiple vintages of lambic.  Gueuze typically carries a complex profile of acidic sour & organically funky flavors, & while some in attendance thrilled to the wild character, others found it to be too much & made their way to the dump bucket.

We headed further into Belgian territory next, tasting several Flanders-style sours – reds & oud bruins, characterized by a sweet/tart balance & acetic flavors, reminiscent of vinaigrette.  Many agreed that the Bellegems Bruin from Brouwerij Bockor was a good introduction to this genus, as its delivery was mellow & balanced while still hitting all the right notes.  The Red Poppy, from The Lost Abbey in California was a bit more intense, sour, & dry, emphasized by their use of sour cherries & aging in oak barrels for a tannic quality.  The Duchesse de Bourgogne, from Brouwerij Verhaege, offered up a very round, full-bodied flavor, again with notes of cherry, dark fruit, & balanced by a moderate vinegar pucker that was not too harsh.  It’s safe to say this was the unofficial flight favorite – those new to the Duchesse really enjoyed it, & those who’d had it before were looking forward to a revisit.  This Flemish excursion ended with Goudenband (“gold label” in Dutch) by Brouwerij Liefmans, a classic oud bruin that skewed to the malty side, with some grape notes & an overall “darker” flavor.

The final three were very distinct, each showing some sour or funk in their own way, beginning with Sour in the Rye from The Bruery.  Made with 40% rye malt, this American wild showed a little spiciness from the rye which was almost overwhelmed by the intensely puckering & tannic profile imparted by aging in oak barrels for over a year.  Moving onto sweeter ground, many found Cisco Brewers’ Pedaler Bike Path Blueblerry Bleer interesting.  A blueberry ale aged in oak with brett & other bugs, it had a lighter & airy character that some described as soapy, floral, or perfumy – flavors not usually found in this style.  Rounding off the evening was the eccentric Goedenacht (“good night”, appropriately), made by Draai Laag Brewing right down the road in Millvale.  This strong Belgian-style golden ale is made with apples, orange blossom honey, & coriander, providing components of a mead & cider.  To add to the fun, it’s fermented with a farmhouse strain & brett, though any brett character is fairly subdued by the other strong flavors frolicking throughout the beer.  Goedenacht also has one of the more bizarre labels folks had seen, a conversation piece in & of itself.

So there’s another fun evening of gathering & tasting in the books!  As always, not everyone liked everything, but I don’t think anyone left feeling disappointed or cheated.  There were some challenging brews, but everyone found something to their liking, even those who admitted they were not sour fans going in.  It was interesting to see, even in such a niche & esoteric family of beers, there’s enough diversity & complexity that just about everyone can find something that speaks to them.