Allagash Rarities At Good Beer

  Allagash Rarities At Good Beer podcast on WFMU

Good Beer in the East Village hosted an "Allagash Rarities" event on Tuesday June 11, 2013, which was a busy night -- also that evening there was an Allagash/Ommegang event at Mile House, a Canadian beer tasting at Top Hops, and the one-night-only screening of The Beer Hunter, followed by an after-party at Jimmy's No. 43. I only managed the Good Beer and Jimmy's events, though B.R. made it to those and the Anthology Film Archives for the screening.

The four "rarities" of the six on tap that we tried were all sour, high in alcohol, barrel aged and a few were heavy on the Brett. We tried the Interlude first, which was the lightest in color and in flavor profile. It's saying something that a very sour, 9.5% ABV, Brettanomyces fermented beer is the lightest one in your flight! It gets a primary fermentation, before the Brett is added, from a Belgian farmhouse ale yeast. A portion of the batch is aged in French Merlot and Sirah oak barrels and, I'm assuming, blended back into rest.

Bob, B.R., and Dave of Allagash.

We found the 10.3% ABV James Bean interesting, it being a pale colored coffee flavored beer. The coffee aroma was very apparent, as was the coffee flavor. It was nicely sour, and also had some bitter bite. But we found those three main components kind of stood on their own and didn't quite meld. Still, a very interesting and tasty sour ale.

Our favorites were the Avancé (B.R.'s fave) and Midnight Brett (Bob's). Avancé is a sour pale colored ale aged with strawberries for three years in bourbon barrels! This 10.8% ABV ale was probably the most complex we tried, with a really nice sweet fruit finish. The Midnight Brett at, I'm guessing, the 10-11% ABV range employs the same Allagash Tripel ale as used in the Curieux, except that the beer is aged in dark wine barrels, which impart a smooth, enticing cherry/plum aged dark fruit characteristic. The beer is stout-black in color, from the wine barrels, and has a refreshing sourness.

 

Though we were disappointed that they didn't have the Allagash BAT tequila barrel aged beer, we really can't complain about the fantastic, extremely rare beers that were offered!
 

BAM!

UPDATE:  A few days after the event, I dropped by Good Beer and saw that the BAM, the Allagash/Beer Advocate collaboration, was still on tap -- it was one of the six that we didn't have -- so I gave it a try. And, boy, was I glad that I did! I think that it was my favorite! The BAM is a 9% ABV amber ale brewed with honey and rye malt and aged for three months in two different mead barrels, one from Artesano of VT and one from Maine Mead Works, and then blended. It was very well rounded, with its delicate, subtle complexities of honey notes, fruitiness and oak playing in concert with its mild sourness (mild compared to the others on tap, at least). This is one that you don't want to miss!

  [link to podcast page]

Anderson Valley Summer Solstice

 

While biking through Williamsburg on an exercise oriented ride I came across a fairly new bottle/growler shop on Union at N. 8th Street call Beer Boutique. Naturally, I had to stop and check it out. The tiny shop has a great variety of craft beers in bottles and cans, mainly of American origin. They also have 10 taps for growler fills. They're not licensed for on premises consumption, so it's all to go.
I didn't see too many unfamiliar items, though I did spot one beer that I'd never tried before, the  Summer Solstice by Anderson Valley from Boonville, CA, north of S.F., by the coast. There wasn't much info on the can which would give an indication about what style it was. The can has a kind of cream-orange color, with their logo -- an illustration a bear with antlers. And there was the mysterious notation "ale with natural flavor added." Typically, any flavor added to the beer outside of the normal brewing ingredients is a red flag, but when the particular added flavor isn't specified... that can be dicey!

Beer Boutique in Williamsburg

The Summer Solstice has a orange/mahogany tinted deep copper color, like a dark Märzen (it looks to be about 15-17 SRM). The can must have still been agitated from the bumpy bike ride, because it gushed a little when opened, pouring out a huge, thick off-white head. The aroma was somewhat unusual -- sweet, malty, but also nougat-like! My guess is that they use honey in the beer, but who knows -- using nougat wouldn't be completely unheard of!
This 5% ABV ale is all about the sweetness and smoothness (only 6 IBUs) with an almost cream soda-like flavor. It has a fairly full body, as well. I'm not sure that it's the first thing I'd reach for on a hot day, but it is unique and tasty.

The Bruery At Good Beer

[link to podcast page]

The Bruery At Good Beer podcast

Every Tuesday Good Beer on E. 9th Street in the East Village hosts a craft beer event, usually featuring a number of beers from one particular brewery. On April 16, 2013, The Bruery of Orange Country, CA was the guest of honor, with six of their unique barrel aged beers on tap. 

The Bruery (named for owners the Rue family) was founded in 2008, and is one of the largest producers of barrel aged craft beer in America. Having so many of their beers on tap in one place at one time is very special -- most associate them with their bottle conditioned offerings.

Good Beer was packed at 6:30pm on a Tuesday with people thirsty for a taste of the often hard to find and generally expensive American sours. Those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time also got a taste of bottle conditioned Papier, the Bruery's 1-year anniversary brew. Four years down the road, it was dark, rich, deep, complex, nicely oxidized, and was a welcome additional surprise! Thanks to Mike of Union and David of Good Beer for sharing!

Full house on a Tuesday!

Evil Twin At Beer Street

  [link to Evil Twin podcast page]


Back in July, Beer Street in Williamsburg hosted a few Danish craft brewers for a tasting event, including Jeppe of Evil Twin, the identical twin brother of Mikkel of Mikkeller. Mikkel and Tør from To Øl were there, too. (Or tøø, if you prefer.)

Both brothers have a similar type of brewing company -- they're gypsy brewers. That means that they don't have their own brewing facility. Instead, they brew their beers, or have them brewed, at different breweries, all over the world. Though, Jeppe does most of his brewing in Europe.

Jeppe is 2nd from the left.

This method has a lot of advantages over a "brick and mortar" operation. First off, there is nowhere near the incredible financial obstacles of buying or even leasing a commercial brewery, and all the complications, government licenses, taxes, etc. that an owner of a brewery has to deal with. No worrying about equipment maintenance. There is no rent. There are no labor costs.


Basically, you have your recipe, you book a brew date with a brewery that has extra capacity (as most do -- few breweries are brewing 24/7), you order your materials to be delivered, then you go and brew! Or you can direct the brewing to the trusted master brewer of that particular brewery.

The brewery takes care of bringing the beer from raw ingredients to bottles or kegs shrinkwrapped on pallets. You don't have to fill a hot liquor tank, couple a hose, shovel spent grain or do any of the other inglorious work involved in brewing. They take care of the dirty work, and you pay them the wholesale cost of the beer, just as if you were buying the brewery's own product. And then you distribute, promote, sell and enjoy!
 

Aside from the obvious advantages of not having all the hassles of owning, paying for, and managing a complex business like a brewery, it also frees up a gypsy brewer to be very creative and flexible. The brewer can use different facilities that are best suited to which ever particular style of beer which he wants to brew. Brewing systems, though technically much the same, can have significant subtle differences that can affect everything from mash efficiency to yeast flocculation, depending on the type of beer and its particular ingredients.

Gypsy brewing is growing -- even The Atlantic wrote about the subject! Jeppe and his brother have been gypsy brewing leaders, joined by other high quality, accomplished brewers, such as the boys at To Øl, Brian of Stillwater, Dan and Martha of Pretty Things, among others -- often times collaborating with one another,  This innovative generation of hyper-creative, quality-minded, imaginative young brewers are blazing the way and making the craft beer world all the more interesting, exciting and delicious!

To Øl At Beer Street

[link to podcast page]

On Sunday July 1, 2012, we biked over the Williamsburg Bridge to check out Beer Street and meet up with some Danish brewers who were on hand.

Peter, Jeppe, Tore, Lorcan, Mikkel.

One of those featured was To Øl, and Tore from the brewing company was there and told us about how he and his partner, Tobias, got started brewing.

The seed of To Øl was planted when in 2005 the duo, still high school students, complained to a chemistry teacher at their school about how much they disliked stale, boring, mass-market lager. It happened that the teacher was no other than Mikkel of Mikkeller!

Photo by Lefty.

The three manged to convince the school that buying homebrewing equipment was a good idea -- "Principal: we need to buy brewing equipment to teach the kids the science of fermentation!"  I have to say, if my teachers were able to relate algebra lessons to brewing beer, I'd have ended up getting a PhD from M.I.T.!

Hear all about it in this podcast. As a bonus, we asked Mikkel how the To Øl boys were as students, which was quite amusing!