Tag Archives: Orval

Stillwater Artisanal Premium


Posted by Aschwin de Wolf

One of the developments that is associated with the increasing popularity of using wild yeast in craft brewing is that almost any kind of beer style has been combined with “brett.” There are now even new breweries whose sole aim is to brew traditional beer styles augmented by wild yeast. Many craft brewing experiments with brettanomyces involve generous malt bills and relatively high alcohol content. Stillwater Artisanal’s Premium, a “post-prohibition style ale,” departs from this trend. If you like a beer such as Fort George’s 1811 lager but are also interested in wild ales or beers like Orval, Premium should be an interesting brew.

Premium was brewed with Pilsner malt, corn, rice, spicy hops like Cluster, Northern Brewer, and Saaz, and fermented with a farmhouse ale yeast and 2 strains of brettanomyces. Such a recipe should produce a light and dry beer and it did. Premium pours an opaque dark yellow color with a big fluffy, white, head. The aroma is light, malty, and crisp with notes of lemon and brettanomyces. The taste is bone dry with bitter, herbal hops. The fermentation products of the brettanomyces yeast are well integrated and this light-bodied beer ends on a long, bitter, finish. Quite remarkably, this brew is still quite tasty when it warms up, too.

I was very pleased with this strange, “modern archaic” beer. It was light, low in alcohol (4.5%), and devoid of the obligatory citrus bomb hops. It is not tremendously complex but in this case that is a feature not a bug.

There are now a number of craft breweries aiming to create a year-round brett beer, and if the brewer proceeds with his plan to release this in cans, this is a strong addition.


Mikkeler Funky E Star


Posted by Aschwin de Wolf

Despite my skepticism about high alcohol beers, I do purchase them every once in a while. And this time it paid off. Mikkeler Funky E Star is a high gravity wild ale that was brewed and bottled at De Proef Brouwerij.

Reportedly, it is similar to It’s Alive (not to be confused with It’s Alright!) but with a higher alcohol percentage (9.4%). The published ingredient list is not particularly revealing and contains: water, malts, light sugar candy, hops, yeast and brettanomyces. Consulting the ingredients for It’s Alive, the malt breaks down into pale and caramel and the hops into hallertauer and styrian goldings. Since It’s Alive was meant as an Orval tribute, the brettanomyces yeast could be Brettanomyces Bruxellensis in this beer as well.

Funky E Star pours an opaque dark orange with very little head. The smell is sweet with notes of banana, freshly baked bread, honey, and a little acid. There is a faint smell of the brett yeast, too. The taste starts out slightly tart, then gives way to notes of sugar, tangerine and cinnamon, and ends with a fairly long finish of spicy, minty, hops. Medium bodied with low carbonation and very smooth.

I did not think this beer was particularly funky. Adding brettanomyces to the bill does not necessarily produce a funky beer and perhaps the gravity is too high for the brett to shine. Unlike Orval, the signature aroma and taste of multiple yeast strains was not masterly executed here. Despite this, this beer has a nice balance between malt and hops and is pleasantly smooth. The initial tart bite and restrained sweetness make this quite drinkable. It is only when the beer warms up that the sweetness gets too dominant for my taste. I cannot claim to be an expert on beer and food pairing, but this should go quite nicely with soft cheese after dinner.


Notes on Toer de Geuze 2011


Posted by Aschwin de Wolf

For the second time in a row I attended the biennial Toer de Geuze event in Belgium. During one day, all lambic brewers and geuze blenders that are part of HORAL (with the exception of Girardin) open their doors to the public. If you decide to do the tour by tour bus you cannot visit all locations and must make a selection. In 2009 I opted for the most traditional brewers and blenders with the exception of geuze blender De Cam. This year I skipped Hanssens (which is among my favorites) and visited De Cam. I also substituted De Troch for Mort Subite. A selection of photos that I took prior to and during the event can be seen here.

Like 2009, all buses were completely booked in advance — although there were some empty seats due to some people not being able to attend or arriving late. The major advantage of doing the tour by bus is that it permits one to sample the products of all the brewers and blenders without having to be concerned about drinking and driving. Since I had attended the Toer de Geuze before, I wondered how much there was to gain from attending two of them in a row. Having seen most of the breweries and blenders now, I am inclined to say that one gets most of the benefits from the first visit. But there were three things that stood out for me during the most recent edition.

First, it seemed quite a bit busier than the previous tour. This was later corroborated when I saw a news item on Belgian television noting this was the best attended Toer de Geuze to date (they estimated more than 10,000 visitors). As a matter of fact, the crowd at 3 Fonteinen was a little excessive in my opinion. Admittedly, in most cases there is not a whole lot the organizers and breweries can do about this and it simply reflects the growing popularity of traditional geuze — which is an exciting development. Since the event seems to confer meaningful benefits to the brewers and blenders involved, making this an annual event might provide some relief.

I have always been aware that many of the sweetened and faux fruit lambics still involve traditional techniques and equipment during the initial stages in order to conform with rules concerning use of the word lambic. But seeing the beautiful brewery, equipment and barrels at De Troch it really struck me how strange it is to see these breweries jumping through many of the same time-consuming hoops as the traditional breweries and then to manipulate (some might say ruin) the final product to make it confirm to contemporary taste. In their defense, many of these brewers would like to make a traditional product and the tour guide at De Troch indicated that the pendulum may be swinging in favor of tradition again.

The biggest surprise awaited me at Boon. Boon had scheduled to brew (or continue to brew) during the event and at one point I found myself staring into the boiling wort with a sublime view of an adjacent coolship. Regular readers of this blog know that I am not the biggest fan of Boon and I have been quite disappointed with most of their products. There is a lack of tartness plus a substantial bitterness (not to mention the often excessive carbonation) in most of their beers, including their two traditional geuzes, that does not resonate with me.  I was therefore not prepared for the excellent old (unblended) lambic that was served for free to the visitors. Some writers have alluded to the oxidized / sherry / Vin Jaune-like qualities of old lambic, but I do not recall having tasted a sample that captured those qualities so well as Boon’s. As far as I am concerned, Boon should just leave their lambic as-is and bottle it after 3, 4, or 5 years! More realistically, they could at least consider bottling some of their aged lambic for the consumer.

Not much later, I found myself  again admiring a Boon product when I (reluctantly) ordered a glass of their Mariage Parfait Kriek 2008. True to form, Boon’s attempt to make a state of the art Kriek did not depart from their low-tartness approach, but in this case it worked for me. After sampling a lot of different krieks during the previous weeks, I noticed a fascinating deep vinous quality to this kriek, more reminiscent of some of the wines I drink than beer.  After these truly unexpected surprises, I made the revolutionary decision to purchase two 375 ml bottles of this Boon release, which I hope to review in conjunction with 3 Fonteinen’s Schaerbeekse Kriek.

Later that day I was tempted to purchase the 5 (!) liter bag-in-a-box Oud Beersel young lambic but restrained myself from doing so by considering the logistical challenges of taking it with me back to the United States. One nice feature of this year’s event is that I had more time to visit the Pajottenland area. Highlights included seeing the old, now inactive, Eylenbosch brewery in Schepdaal (where I spotted a big Toer de Geuze sign) and having dinner at De Heeren van Liedekercke. This restaurant completely deserves its reputation as offering the best beer-based cooking in the Brussels region and they have, by far, the most impressive vintage lambic / geuze / kriek list that I have ever seen in my life (not too mention a breathtaking number of Orval vintages).


Mikkeller It’s Alright!


Posted by Aschwin de Wolf

Denmark’s Mikkeller is not averse to experimentation. Among their most interesting beers are those in the single hop and yeast series, robust stouts, and a number of wild ales.

Mikkeller’s It’s Alright! is a relatively low alcohol (4.5 %) “Belgian wild ale.” I doubt that Mikkeller envisioned this beer as a complex concoction. Think of a generic ale and substitute  brettanomyces for conventional yeast and you get something like It’s Alright! The beer is hazy golden in appearance and retains little head while drinking. The aroma is simple and invokes brettanomyces, citrus and cheese. A creamy, medium-bodied, medium-carbonation beer that tastes like it smells and ends on a dry bitter note. I do not know what Mikkeller’s objective was in releasing this beer to the general public because this tastes more like a “test  brew” that is made to develop a certain style than a finished consumer product. For people who prefer brettanomyces over conventional yeast this might still be preferable to a generic lager or ale, but for this price one can get a quality brett-based beer like Orval, which has some nice hops in it too.


Signature Ale


Posted by Aschwin de Wolf

signatureBrettanomyces and hops are a predictable element in traditional lambic brewing but, as a general rule, the hops are not allowed to contribute to the flavor of the beer. One exception to this rule is Cantillon Iris, which does not contain wheat and includes fresh hops. As such, Cantillon has wisely decided not to label that a lambic beer. Another example of a beer that combines the Brettanomyces yeast and hops is the classic Trappist ale Orval.  But what can we expect from an experiment to combine Brettanomyces and American West Coast style hopping?

Signature Ale was conceived by the Port Brewing Company and De Proefbrouwerij in 2007 to find out. This  limited American / Belgian collaboration uses Sacchromyces and Brettanomyces and Amarillo, UK Phoenix, and German Brewers’ Gold hops during the boil and dry hopping. The result was released in 750 ml corked bottles.

The following notes were taken on Friday, March 27, 2009.

Poured into a snifter.

Appearance: Golden orange color. Substantial amount of yeast in bottom of bottle before pouring, resulting in a little yeast in the glass. 1.5 fingers of foam with some head retention and lacing.

Smell: Brett, pronounced orange smell, and citrus hops. Sweeter and more expressive when it gets warmer, but no element ever runs amok.

Taste: The malt, Brett and hops are in perfect harmony throughout. Ends on a velvety, hoppy finish. Warm and boozy.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, nice carbonation, smooth, and creamy.

Drinkability: Smooth sipper. Beer changes with temperature, but is incredibly well integrated at every temperature. At 8.5% alcohol, this beer definitely packs a punch…take a taxi home!

Can one use Brettanomyces for beers that are not sour? I had an experimental 100% Brett beer once and was seriously underwhelmed, having to poor a portion of it down the drain. So it is fair to say that this beer was approached with some degree of caution. I am therefore glad to report that Signature Ale is absolutely stunning. The malt, brett and citrus hops present themselves in a beautiful balance. Finding a note that is off, even at different temperatures, is impossible.  This drinks like a strong but subtle Imperial IPA with the warm and introvert feel of a good Belgian Trappist Triple. This creation should not leave any remaining questions about the use of Brettanomyces for strongly hopped beers. A remarkable achievement.