In my ‘Wine for Lambic Drinkers’ post in 2009 I briefly mentioned the naturally fermented ciders from the Isastegi estate in the Basque country of Spain as a drink that lambic drinkers might enjoy. With the currently weak dollar and increasingly excessive prices for imported lambics and limited edition American wild ales, it is a good time to remind the reader of these delicious Isastegi ciders again. For around $10 you can get yourself a 750 ml bottle of this dry and tart cider. Without getting into a detailed description of its aroma and flavor, the best way to capture the experience is to imagine yourself drinking a hard cider that has many of the characteristics of a traditional gueuze. Just like a “smoked” character can be imparted to different kinds of alcoholic beverages, spontaneously fermented drinks have a distinct signature in common as well. In the case of this naturally fermented cider, the typical brettanomyces barnyard aroma is all present. To further broaden the topic, a fine introduction to the wild fermentation revolution is Sandor Ellix Katz’s Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods.
Tag Archives: Lambic
Block 15′s lambic-inspired #181
Not even a month passed since I lamented the absence of good sour beers in Oregon when the 3rd anniversary of Bailey’s Taproom featured Block 15′s “lambic inspired” #181 as part of their barrel-aged celebration. #181 is a two barrel blend of one year old beers that was exclusively casked for the event. A sign on the little barrel at Bailey’s informed us that it was brewed in July 2009 with Belgian Pilsner, unmalted wheat, aged hops and wild Belgium yeast and bacteria from the Zenne valley in Belgium. A Turbid mash was used, followed by an extended boil, fermentation and maturation in oak barrels. The beer is “gently carbonated” and served by gravity at cellar temperature.
It is an understatement to say that this beer produced some strong reactions from those who sampled it. This should not be surprising because straight young and old lambics are among the least accessible beers in the world. Their limited availability is one factor contributing to this phenomenon. The only bottled (aged) lambic is Cantillon’s Grand Cru Bruocsella. Young lambics are even harder to find and only available at the brewery, special events, and selected local Belgian pubs.
Technically speaking, Block 15′s #181 should be distinguished from such young and old lambics because it is a two barrel blend of one year old beers. But the blending of beers with identical maturation times results in the typical apple juice “flat” beer that is reminiscent of an unblended lambic. The lack of carbonation eliminates the refreshing structure that typifies the traditional geuze or fruit lambic. Block 15′s #181 shows a little carbonation after serving but the beer quickly takes on a still and flat appearance.
The beer is served at cellar temperature but gains more in aroma when it equilibrates with room temperature. The aroma suggests wheat, brettanomyces and vanilla notes. This medium-bodied beer starts off with sharp acidity, lemon and tropical fruits, followed by more mellow vanilla notes and a looooong bitter and “woody” finish. Unlike a geuze, this is not a session beer and would be ideal to sip with cheese and nuts.
I can only applaud Block 15 for brewing a beer like this. Unlike other Northwestern brewers, this beer does not suffer from being a sweet fruit bomb or an experiment-for-experimentation’s sake. The unorthodox lingering finish left me somewhat puzzled and I wonder what kind of barrels Block 15 used for this beer.
Block 15 has a serious wild ale brewing program going on and an interesting account of #181′s journey from Belgium to Corvallis can be read here.
A celebration of sour beers
I have been reluctant to write about Belmont Station’s 2010 Puckerfest because there were few local sour beers on tap that I find appealing, and this opinion is not due to a lack of trying! I still am not aware of any Pacific Northwest brewer who can consistently produce a good consistent sour ale. I am inclined to think that this is the result of the tendency to engage in excessive experimentation in the world of microbrewing. Experimentation is great for innovation but the usual order of things is to master the basic style first. One of the sour ales on tap tasted like the soft drink Fanta, another one displayed a rather unsuccessful combination of brett and oak, and one brew could only be classified as “theoretical” because it probably sounded good on paper, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Like last year, I liked the Russian River and New Belgium brews the best. New Belgium has the annoying, but understandable, habit of producing its best beers in tap-only limited quantities, although their more available La Folie is a serious contender for the best sour ale in the United States.
One real problem for the American sour beer consumer is that even the better producers like Russian River have to release their beers with a price tag that is usually higher than, let’s say, a great traditional Gueuze blender like Hanssens – and that is after import from Belgium to the United States! It is interesting to note that the Pacific Northwest is plagued by a similar curse in the case of wine. Pinot Noir is a notoriously challenging grape to grow and the price reflects this. For a fraction of the price of a decent Oregon Pinot Noir, good organic reds from France are available at local wine retailers like Liner & Elsen. This should not be read as a United States vs. Europe issue. The United States can claim some world class beers (Deschutes’ Green Lakes, Russian River’s Pliny the Elder, Great Divide’s Yeti Imperial Stout) but I am not holding my breath for an affordable year-round top-notch sour ale anytime soon.
At this point in time, Portland’s best local sour drink on tap (!) remains Kombucha.
Jeff Sparrow on wild brews
Jeff Sparrow’s Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer’s Yeast is a major contribution to the literature on lambic beer. In this book the author does not only discuss traditional lambic but Flanders red ale, Flanders brown ale, and contemporary (American) wild ale as well. If anything, this book is testament that spontaneous fermentation and brewing with other yeasts then Saccharomyces is not dead.
After being introduced by New Belgium’s Peter Bouckaert, the book starts off with the obligatory account of how the author became interested in the beers he loves to write about. In this case the author is traveling in in Europe, ends up in Chez Moeder Lambic in Elsene, Belgium, orders a lambic “with some odd tropical fruit” and is told by the bartender to try Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus instead. This experience, and a later experience with a vintage bottle of Liefmans Goudenband (old recipe) set the stage for an enduring interest in the wild brews of Belgium.
The recovery of traditional lambic and the movement to brew wild ales in other parts of the world raises the obvious question if lambic can be brewed anywhere else than Brussels and the Payottenland. Brewer Frank Boon reportedly said “you can’t” but Cantillon’s Jean-Pierre Van Roy believes that spontaneously fermented beer can be brewed in other places in the world. These answers are not mutually exclusive. If lambic beers are defined as spontaneously fermented beers that are brewed in Belgium’s Payottenland, it is evident that lambics cannot be brewed in any other part of the world. If the defining character of lambic is true spontaneous fermentation, all bets are off. And if lambic is defined solely by its flavor profile, the character of lambics can be approached by controlled fermentation with non-traditional yeasts and bacteria. In his book 1990 “Lambic”, Jean-Xavier Guinard argues persuasively that the temptation to ride on the popularity of lambics should be resisted and that this label only needs to be used for the traditional brews of the Payottenland. On the other hand, when brewers in other parts of the world employ the authentic traditional techniques such non-Belgium lambics could help to save the tradition from extinction.
Sparrow devotes some effort to distinguish between Flanders red ales (sour ales), Flanders brown ales (oud bruin) and lambics. In the case of lambics such distinctions are clear but the attempt to distinguish red ales from brown ales looks more challenging. One cannot just tweak a little with another beer style and get a lambic but the dividing line between the Flanders ales can appear quite arbitrary, although one could mention that the the presence of Acetobacter sp. contributes to the more pronounced presence of acetic acid in the reds. But reading his account of the Flanders sour ales, it seems that these beers are more vulnerable to disappear than lambics. This is ironic because modern examples of such beers are produced in ways that would be considered taking lazy shortcuts by traditional lambic standards. This raises the question of how the production of a traditional Flanders sour ale be distinguished from a traditional lambic, a topic that is discussed at various points in the book.
The history of wild brews is covered in some detail, including a brief discussion of the American Wild Ale style. Sparrow expands on the history of lambic brewing given in Guinard. As the author states, “lambic can lay claim to being the oldest existing beer style in the world”, its first written documentation going back to around 1320. The most infamous lambic variant must be faro, “the beer which is drunk twice”, a characterization that dates from the time that waste-polluted Senne River water was used to brew this sweet lambic. Discussing the practice of blending and diluting lambics, the author notes that some hint “that the founder of the Belle-Vue lambic brewery-pub in Brussels was not well respected and produced his lambic with help from beer discarded from other breweries and returned from cafes.”
Although most lambics that are consumed today are gueuze and fruit lambics, one hundred years ago 90% to 95% of lambics were sold straight. Lambic brewers Cantillon and De Cam have bottled unblended aged lambic, but it is not likely that this style will catch on beyond locals, a small group of lambic connoisseurs and perhaps some adventurous wine drinkers any time soon. Sparrow mentions that traditional lambic brewers consider the differences between lambic and wine and between Gueuze and Champagne very small. Quite remarkably, the author also mentions that in Eastern Brabant the traditional white (wit) beers were produced by spontaneous fermentation as well. Fruit and herbs were often used in the production to balance the sourness of the beer. The addition of herbs has remained a staple of Belgian white beers such as Hoegaarden but the tradition of spontaneous fermentation has been abandoned.
The third chapter about drinking wild beer has lot of information (including a number of maps) about most of the major existing producers of traditional lambics and wild ales and makes the book quite useful as a reference. There are also interesting tidbits of information about the evolution of some brewers, which often means the transition from a traditional product to something with more mass appeal (such as the reduction of aged beer in Rodenbach Classic to make it sweeter). This chapter really shines in its description of the traditional lambic brewers; their formation, history and brewing approach. Sparrow’s description of 3 Fonteinen’s unorthodox “temperature controlled” barrel stores has taken a completely different meaning since the 2009 disaster that cost the brewery most of its years product and contributed to DeBelder’s decision to stop brewing and return to blending. The United States is also discussed and includes some interesting information on smaller experiments with wild ales around the country. Also featured, of course, is Russian River, the California brewery that has done a lot to promote sour ales in the United States and who can give many Belgium brewers a run for their money.
The technical treatment of lambic brewing covers much of the same ground as Jean-Xavier Guinard’s 1990 book on the topic but adds a lot of interesting details, photos (including microscopy images) and tables. In the case of Sparrow’s book there is, of course, also the technical treatment of the production of Flanders reds and browns. Most impressive, and somewhat of a neglected topic in Guinard’s book, is the extensive discussion of the characteristics, selection and maintenance of barrels, an element of traditional lambic brewing that requires a lot of expertise, which further adds to the mystique of lambic brewing. In his discussion of barrel choice, the author mentions the ability of some lambic connoisseurs to detect the original use of a “new” barrel in a blend. Breweries such as Belle-Vue, Cantillon, and Oud Beersel also use chestnut barrels in addition to oak.
The technical and procedural treatment of lambic is completed with a chapter about blending, and that of Gueuze blending in particular. As the author notes: “Gueuze blending is an art. The traditional gueuze blender expresses himself using a liquid media the same way a painter uses paint and canvas.”
Wild Brews is great book for lovers of traditional lambic. Highly recommended.
Gueuze blender Pierre Tilquin
The Belgian beer blog Hier Stroomt het Bier! has an extensive photo report on the birth of a new Gueuze blender from Bierghes in the French speaking part of Belgium (Walloons). Brewer Pierre Tilquin, who has learned the skills of traditional lambic brewing at 3 Fonteinen and Cantillon, expects to release his first Gueuze in mid-2011. Lambics are obtained from Boon, Lindemans, Girardin, and Cantillon (the first time this brewer is making its lambic available for blending) and will be aged in used Crozes-Hermitage of Cornas barrels.