I love to attend beer festivals. They provide an opportunity to try new or unique products or to give thanks to breweries that you have come to deeply appreciate. As fun as it is to spend time with fellow beer geeks, there are some disadvantages of the festival environment: long booth lines, extremely overpriced food, and the inevitably full men's room. To alleviate these obviously inconsequential disadvantages, my friends and I decided to throw a tasting party for visiting family members and ourselves. What started at as a conversation to hang out, listen to records and imbibe with craft beer turned into the greatest night of drinking since my transition into the craft beer environment.
The night begin with a growler of
Cambridge Brewing Company's,
Me, My Spelt, and Rye. How we obtained a growler of this draft only collaborative release is another story, but it was the perfect way to begin the evening. This collaborative effort brought Chad Yakobson of
Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project, Yvan De Baets of
Brasserie De La Senne, Luc LaFontaine of
Dieu De Ciel and Will Meyers of Cambridge Brewing Company together to create, as Meyers states on the company's website, "an old-school saison." Normally, the fermentation with a saison yeast will create flavors that have been called: funky, farmy, horse blanket, earthy, etc. These same descriptors have also been used to articulate the flavor profile of the wild yeast, Brettanomyces. So naturally, these innovative brewers decided to ferment their newest creation with both a French saison yeast and multiple strains of Brettanomyces. The resulting product was a full-flavored beer with a distinctive cereal quality that flowed nicely into hints strawberry and raspberry while finishing very dry.
Next, before our palates were subdued, we decided to work through portfolio of the
Saint Sixtus Abbey, better known as
Westvleteren. Although these monks only brew three styles for purchasing, you must make the journey to the Abbey's doors to purchase these highly coveted ales. Since I have never been to Belgium, we will leave how we obtained these Belgian specialities for another day. We began our Westvleteren tasting with the monk's blond ale,
Westvleteren 6. This creamy and hazy beer had an assertive brightness that contained hints of lemon and a subtle belgian yeast character. The complexity of this delicious blond ale made it harder to truly pull out any other distinct flavors. We discussed this beer thoroughly, dissecting it and trying to pull out other flavors, but eventually we decided that underneath its complexity, its most important and appreciated character was its drinkability. It was a truly great beer.
Following the six, we opened a bottle of
Westvleteren 8. This Belgian
Dubbel was a deep ruby color with a very bubbly-airy head. The taste contained a very pleasant light, candy sugar, not cloying at all. Dark fruit characters, predominantly a raisin quality, came second in the taste. The taste finished with subtle warming from the 8.0% ABV.
To complete our Westvleteren tour, we opened a
Westvleteren 12. This
Belgian Strong Dark Ale (Quad) was similar in color to the
Eight, but upon further inspection, we decided that it was higher on the
SRM scale (the higher the SRM number, the darker the beer). This beer may be the most complex ale I have ever tasted in my life. Instantly, dark, rich fruits: prunes, dates and figs coated the palate. In balance with these dark fruits were the grains creating hints of toffee and caramel. The mouthfeel was very creamy and contained an appropriate level of carbonation. At 10.2% ABV, this beer is unbelievably smooth. The alcohol content is so well hidden, you feel as though this dark ale is sessionable. As crazy as that sounds, its true.
After our Westvleteren tasting session, the night took a very different turn, a "sour" turn. The,
Petite Sour, from Crooked Stave was the first of many sour ales. On the label of the beer, it classifies the
Petite Sour as a table farmhouse, but the taste profile delineates from this categorization. The beer poured very cloudy, reminding me of a classic witbier. There is a wonderful, puckering sour that "attacks" the back portion of the palate. Lemon is the dominate flavor, but other fruits were detectable: sour apple and lime. I truly appreciated the Brett control in this beer. The Brett
is present, but doesn't take away from the other components of the beer. Chad Yakobson and his wild yeast strains have developed an almost cult following and I am sure that his beers will continue to gain in popularity while pushing the brewing process.
While Chad Yakobson has his
Reserved Society and his many cult followers, Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo have a nation of beer geeks longing for their extremely hoppy beers:
Pliny the Elder and the very limited
Pliny the Younger and their Sour ales
Supplication, Consecration and
Temptation,
just to name a few. The first of three beers that we would sample from Russian River over the evening was
Sanctification. This beer contained a very high level of carbonation with bubbles quickly penetrating through its golden color. There was a very dominant yeast character in the aroma (Later, I found out that primary fermentation is completely performed by Brett). There was a distinct sourness at the front of my palate that finished very dry creating a very crisp and refreshing golden ale. After the beer had time to warm, a biscuity, oaky quality developed during the finish.
Quickly finishing the 750mL bottle of
Sanctification, there was a large, bright green bottle of
Cantillon Gueuze and we couldn't resist. This "Classic", not "oude" gueuze, was a light copper color with a very airy head. There was a little sour that reminded me of weak vinegar. Also, there was a "diesel" quality that was strange, but digestable. Finally, as the beer warmed a tannic character begin to develop creating a very unique and distinct sour ale.
After taking some time to eat some delicious Cantillon Gueuze cheese and artisanal baguettes, we took a break from Russian River and opened
Tart Lychee from New Belgium. Another sour ale,
Tart Lychee is infused with cinnamon and pureed
Lychee fruit. This beer is light gold with an aroma that displays the cinnamon nicely, but if I didn't know that lychee was used as a fruit adjunct, I probably would have guessed raspberries. During sampling, lychee is more prominent creating a slightly sweet taste character. Within the taste, cinnamon doesn't dominate as it did in the aroma; it was balanced with the fruit. The sourness of this ale was mildly acidic nothing remotely close to the puckering capability of the
Petite Sour. As we were drinking this beer, a conversation started about a possibly forced complexity to attract buyers. Questions swirled about the addition of cinnamon to a sour ale to pushing brewing boundaries and ideas of what beer can be. Either way, the consensus was that this sour ale would be perfect for a lazy day of reading while lying in a shaded hammock.
The second Russian River beer we decided to try was
Redemption. This barrel-aged blonde ale had a much lighter mouthfeel then its brethren,
Sanctification. This lighter bodied ale was full of a very distinct belgian yeast character and a bready maltiness. The finish was short, but very dry creating very refreshing and drinkable beer.
Upon completing the
Redemption bottle, we decided to uncap and uncork the most anticipated beer of the night,
Fantome's Extra Sour. This beer had the most unique sourness of the night. It contained a spiciness and yeasty character normally associated with farmhouse ales or saisons. Along with these two characteristics, a very prickling acidity from an extreme level of carbonation added more depth and complexity to a very delicious beer. After the beer had time to warm, an earthy quality crept into the taste that reminded me of mint or wintergreen. At 10% ABV, the "ghost", Dany Prignon, has created a simply stunning sour ale with no hints of its alcohol content.
The final beer of the night was the third from Russian River,
Damnation. There was a definite citrus and floral aroma. The taste was full of belgian character like
Duvel or
La Chouffe and incorporated a honey sweetness that balanced the beer beautifully. This beer had a ever-lasting finish that lingered on the palate. Full-bodied and silky,
Damnation was an excellent way to finish our epic beer tasting.
The collection of beer that flowed during this night is probably the best I have ever seen in one place including beer bars and festivals. I know a night like this may never happen again, so I am grateful to the residents of 70 Park Ave for their generosity and impeccable tastes.
Cheers,
PandaMack
In an earlier post, I stated my adoration for Wormtown Brewery's, Be Hoppy. At the time of the post, it ranked as my fourth favorite beer brewed in the Commonwealth, so when I saw, Hopulence, Wormtown's Double (Imperial) IPA, I quickly snatched it off the shelf.
The beginning of the taste is dominated by a malt sweetness. As this sweetness subsides, there is a sharp and aggressive bitterness the does not linger on the palate for very long. The bitterness is full of grapefruit that parallels the aroma, but I was hoping for some notes of other tropical fruits: pineapple or mango. As the beer warms, the hop bitterness becomes more dominate in the taste profile creating a balance of bitterness and sweetness.
