Sour Beer Studies – Page 4 – A Good Beer Blog

Sour Beer Studies: Sweet, Sour And… The Brewmaster’s Table

I have been a bad beer blogger. I just got a copy of Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmaster’s Table. One baaad beer blogger. And not bad like ManRam says either. The fact is, I thought it was really more like The Brewmaster’s “Kitchen” and had expected it was more like a recipe book. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Lucy Saunders obviously does a great job at telling us how to cook with beer. But I didn’t feel drawn to another similar one.

How wrong I was. How shallow the uninquisitive mind. This is a great and valuable text. No wonder everyone recommends it. Let me be a guest late to this party. It is well laid out with sections of the traditions of the great brewing nations, a discussion of the major styles found in each, examples and their properties as well as a description of the foods that go with each. It is the table because it is what a craft brewer would (and does) place place before himself in terms of food and drink. Good. Handy.

For present purposes, though, the book provides me with one thing that no one else in my meager span of attention had mention. Many traditional sour beers – and especially the sourest – were not intended to be consumed without sweetening. See, this is what has always bugged me about lambics and gueuze. We do the medievals and thems that followed a disservice when we say that the pure raw lip puckering drink is what they would have consumed. First of all, most of them would have consumed mostly unhopped ales bittered with gruit made and swallowed within a few days. Then, few would have had access to the resources required to buy aged ale, including any which might have been aged for souring. Additionally, those that were aged were likely aged within the annual cycle as is most every other agricultural product. These general observations seem both logical and consistent with the histories by Cornell, Haydon, Hornsey and Unger. Plus I have another pet theory – no one drinks extremely sour things without a certain purpose and sour in beer has long standing recognition as a failing in brewing.

But I have gone over that before in these sour beer studies. What is new is the mention made of one tradition of Belgian lambic drinkers – as opposed to its brewers – described in The Brewmaster’s Table. At page 71, comparing dry lambics to their sweet siblings, Oliver states:

Lambic afficiandos are given to frothing at the mouth when the latter versions are mentioned, but I feel both types have their place. Don’t forget that some people always sweetened their beers, when they could afford it – sugar was once a luxury.

Sadly, I can not longer wallow in vindication dancing the merry jig as these studies have given me both respect and a taste for the sour beers of Belgium. I still find Cantillon too stark but that is like saying Guinness is too dark. It simply is. And sour for me now holds an interesting and worthy place in the beery pantheon.

But, still, there is comfort knowing that now and likely in the past people did not suffer austere acidity except as a mild fetish or a consequence of poverty. Two traditional styles, neither of which I have tried as they are quite localized, confirm how sweetening may have been undertaken, Berliner weisse and faro. Berliner weisse is a German sour brew uniformly taken with a sweet fruity syrup and preserving sweets is entirely reasonable as a form of storage though the centuries. I would expect that facing another pitcher of dry lambic before him on the table, your average 16th centurian may well have had a spoon in the jelly or honey jar next to it. In addition to Berliner weisse, Belgian faro is described as a “low-alcohol, slightly sweet table beer made from lambic to which brown sugar has been added” – taken on draft, again, it is a reasonable approach to making a rather restrictive brew more approachable for the many.

Point? I am relieved to find this confirmation from somewhere that lambics were sweetened by drinkers in much the same way as the old guys shook the salt over their draft in the Nova Scotian taverns of my youth. People, as we learned from Depeche Mode, are people. Other point? Buy The Brewmaster’s Table.

Sour Beer Studies: Vichtenaar, Verhaeghe, Belgium

Sibling to the more popular Duchesse De Bourgogne, I got this one at Beers of the World in Rochester at the beginning of August. Frankly, I can’t believe that it’s lasted this long as one thing I am learning from these sour beer studies is that I could be a wee bit obsessed with these Flemish ones.

At 5.1%, not a heavy-weight by any length but not many of these are. The brewery’s explanation of the beer is in Flemish but have a go, tell us what you think it says – this bit especially:

De smaak van de “Vichtenaar” kan men omschrijven als licht zurig en complex en dit door de lange gisting in eikenhouten vaten.

If you need a hint, I recall that “smaak” is taste, which you might have figured out yourself. “Omschrijven”? – not so sure.

Translucent mahogany ale under fine tan froth and foam, the aroma is sherry and nuts, vanilla and a little vinegar. Very soft water, as the website states, makes this very moreish – surprisingly so with one of this style. Initially I thought that this was less complex than other Flemish sours I had had but it’s just a bit less strident, the sour a bit recessed, the yeast milky, the malt all full of cherry and pear and maybe, just maybe, a tiny note of maple. Plenty of BAer respect.

Sour Beer Studies: Why Did Sour Arise In The First Place?

Writing about what is on other people’s beer blogs is a quick way to fill a day’s obligation to fill up one’s own sheet. But seeing as I have been trying to lead Ron Pattinson and his excellent library of brewing records into figuring out stuff that has piqued my idle sort of curiosity, I think it is well worth noting.

My questioning in these sour beer studies is triggered by one question – who the hell would drink sour beer over fresh? That question is packed with implications like “what is fresh?” and “what is sour?” and even “what is beer?” but it also is packed with the blindness of modernity, a fault that should be admitted from the outset as it is my question after all. It is reasonable to note that only recently that “fresh” was available to most people in the western world most of the time. For the most part food and drink were things that had intermediary storage periods by necessity of the annual cycles of nature. People were used to grain stores, bacon smoked above the fire, cheese with extra-tangy bits which would now see us deem the whole piece fit only for the garbage. So, too, people would have liked beer held for a time with a tang in addition to or instead of the fresh-made stuff.

But tang costs money. To hold beer long enough to gain a degree of souring, you need resources: enough space to store casks, enough money to buy the casks and even enough money not to sell the beer right away deferring the income to later. This is the thing that has niggled at the back of my mind in all this thinking about sourness and it brought me to thinking about cycles of beer storage. Beers like marzen or biere de garde are stored though a season once a year for an annual purpose whether it is to celebrate an event or fuel the harvest. And, like most of the present versions of the Trappist beers, these styles are recently framed, say, only since 1800.

So what gets a beer past its first anniversary? Ron points out one reason: “[i]f you have a good harvest one year, make beer with the surplus grain to be used in poor years. That seems to be the origin of Kriek: a way to preserve a glut of cherries.” And Martyn Cornell added a very useful comment to a recent thread at Ron’s about a very important record, Obadiah Poundage’s letter of 1760. Martyn kindly noted:

Alan, as Ron said, private brewers were storing their beers for a long time pretty soon after hops took off in England. William Harrison, a parson from Essex, writing in 1577, said the March beer served at noblemen’s tables “in their fixed and standing houses is commonly of a year old” and sometimes “of two years’ tunning or more.”

Luxury. Pure luxury. Only those who had the means to store could store. While it is as strange to us as a Victorian forcing house, those who could buy casks did as buying in bulk and cellaring was the only way really, as can be read in Julian Jeffs excellent book Sherry, that pre-mass marketed wines were acquired for the fitting out of the cellar of great house or (centuries fly by) an newly wealthy merchant – with the proper care and handling of the stored drink being part of the deal and expense and status. Martyn’s quote shows this applies to beer. With the industrial revolution, the earliest example of which industry is more than arguable brewing, references to the production and storage of beer by brokers for mass consumption seems to pop up in the records like Obadiah’s letter. Technology and more dispersed wealth make more general consumption of sour and tang possible, replacing the more modestly produced ales and brown beers that neighbourhood brewsters had been making for local consumption since Adam.

Keep in mind this is all sketchy, far too general and likely mostly wrong in that these are merely my own studies. But for now that is what I have come up with. And I would like to learn more about the available industrial archeology of, say, pre-1800 brewing. How much of production was stored for this quality if this quality cost more? And what part of the storage was stored for more that one annual cycle? Demand for sour had to be present such that the increased costs were overcome.

Any ideas where such stuff can be found? I should revisit Haydon, Unger, Hornsey and, of course, Cornell on the point. And pester Ron more. That’s likely the easiest thing to do

Session 7: Visiting The Brew Zoo

It is the first Friday of the month and that means it is the day of The Session. Rick Lyke named it this time and chose “The Brew Zoo” demanding we all drink beers with animals on the labels. I forgot this earlier in the week when I popped a Struis with an ostrich on the front. That would have been perfect. A real shoe in for most exotic. Now I have to drink that beer with a goat on it. Do you know how many beers have goats on them? Good lord. It’s about as many as Belgian beers with monks or elves…or German lagers showing lassies with costume malfunctions. Goats…jeesh.

So I will have to see where I go with this month’s choice or choices for reviewing after work. I have to think about this and get back to you. The photo above has nothing to do with it. I just felt guilty after promising reviews of the growlers I brought back from Grand River the other week – but plans got hijacked last Friday evening after work when BR and Paul from Kingston showed up. Click on the picture. They were that good.

The Actual Beastie In Question: Bam Bière by Jolly Pumpkin. I have never had this one before or anything by this brewer but, as far as I am concerned, the lack of hordes of folks making tiny batches of farmhouse ale thoughout the villages and hamlets of North America is one of the faults of the culture.

Plenty of BAer love but is it a saison or bière de garde? Just farmhouse ale we are told…hmmm… The brewer says:

An artisan farmhouse ale that is golden, naturally cloudy, bottle conditioned and dry hopped for a perfectly refreshing balance of spicy malts, hops and yeast.

It’s only 4.5% and, ok, I admit it – dogs are rarely in the zoo. But who cares? I didn’t pick the topic. And what do I think?

[Ed.: give him a moment, would you?]

Well, this one could do with a cage or maybe just a shorter leash. An explosion of froth out of the 10.00 USD 750 ml bottle leaving me scrambling for a number of glasses to collect it all in. It was worth the scramble. In the mouth, this is like a subdued cousin of Fantome – white pepper and cream of wheat but also lemony like a Belgian white. Straw ale under a massively rocky white meringue head. Hoppy with astringent dried out hops leaving a lavendar. Dry with under ripe strawberry. The nose reminds me of poached haddock with only white pepper that I had as a child but that should mean nothing to you. Fabulous. A cross between straight-up Fantome saison and Orval?

Good doggie.

Holland: Struis, Brouwerij ‘t IJ, Amsterdam

I have a sticker on my hand that says “$6.20” and on my desk I have a 330 ml bottle of Struis. In the US, that price gets the best part of a decent six pack of craft beer. In Ontario, it gets you half a six of Unibroue’s Trois Pistoles or a large Chimay Premiere. So, for my dollar, this beer from Brouwerij ‘t IJ has got some pretty good competition and really has some explaining to do.

Richly clinging pale pine lumber head over orange amber ale, much muddier after the final pour and yeasty shake. On the nose a hop basket – your Grannie’s knitting basket that is as these have a haunting waft of musty attic. On these mouth, it starts to make sense. This is like Orval taken up a notch or two with 9% alcohol and a bigger maltier profile. Rather than cover up the booze with malt, this one blends it in with the orange peel, twiggy and lavender hops giving a aged spicy effect. This sits over fig and raisin malt. Steely finish. My creaky Dutch tells me the label’s claim of biobeer as well as ongefiltered and ongepasteuriseerd refers to some organic status, unfiltered and unpasturised. Imported to the US by Shelton Brothers, there is strong but not universal BAer support.

Is a small bottle like this worth it? For a try, sure – go ahead. After a try, if you love it, why not buy more? But if it is not the beer you absolutely love, I see the price point as a real issue for this one when you consider it sells for the same price as a 330ml Chimay Premiere at the fine bottle shop Cracked Kettle in Amsterdam. Where’d that price difference come from in mid-Atlantic transit?

Sour Beer Studies: Grand Cru, Brouwerij Rodenbach, Belgium

There’s plenty of good stuff down in the stash but I had to think hard about what was the right beer for the Sox and Yanks tonight. I settled on Rodenbach Grand Cru as it is a Flemish Red. I previously reviewed it but that was so 2004 when I thought it was over the top in tartness.

Ah…the innocence of youth. That was before the on-set of my relationship with Cantillon. Sure this one is acidic but there is plenty of bright vanilla, cherry – though there is still a sharp vinegary catch at the back of the throat. It pours a reddish mahogany with a thin roam and rim of off white. A little less rich than other Flems of recent sipppery but there is an interesting apple and beef thing in there if you rearrange the tastes. Refreshing and revitalizing. I will save the dry gueuze for the fish and chips now.

This one could soak a mean ribeye. Strong but not unanimous BA love.

Sour Beer Studies: Gueuze From Cantillon And Hanssens

Gueuze. A blend of young and old lambics. I’ve had some – a couple of sweetened ones from St. Louise and Mort Subite and Lindeman’s drier Gueuze Cuvée René. All very pleasant but these two are perhaps on the more…errr…hostile side of dry. But I am here to learn so bear with me.

Before we get there, what does gueuze mean? I’ve been asking around a bit lately. Lew was stumped…and just a tiny bit sweary Mary: “Damn, no, never knew about that. I REALLY need to read some Dutch history. I keep reading around the edges of it. Thanks for the prod in that direction.” Prof. Unger of UBC of the great books on medieval beer gave me his guess when I noted the naming of a group of 16th century Dutch rebels, the watergeuzen:

…Geuze = “beggar” is a French word that only appeared in the mid 15th century and was taken over into Dutch [Flemish] in the 16th and connected, as you say, with nobles who rebelled against the crown in 1566. There was a middle French word geus which meant throat and so came to mean hungry and my guess is that the beer type comes from that meaning. Also though I will not swear to it I think geuze is a beer type of the South, that is the southern Netherlands and which does not turn up in the Dutch Republic where, if the name were connected to the watergeuzen you would expect it to be used. I could be wrong but that is my best guess at the moment.

Ron Pattinson posts about another non-source of the meaning of gueuze with today’s post entitled “Gose” about the our beer of Leipzig stating that while the names are not related that there was “once a whole family of sour wheat beers, brewed right across the North of Germany and the Low Countries, from Brussels to Berlin and beyond.” So while it might or might not be “begger’s ale” or could be more or less directly linked to the other forms of sour beer, there is this set of sourness that speaks to a former time in some way, though one always has to be careful with claims to “authentic” and “heritage” in the world of drinks as in anything.

These beers are very similar. Cantillon’s Classic Gueuze is a 2006 bottling of blended 1, 2 and 3 year old lambics (and apparently a relabelling of their Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic-Bio, an Organic Gueuze) while Hanssens Oude Gueuze (the “oude” being explained on the brewer’s site that features no way to link to the actual page within the site) states on its label that it is matured for over three years in the bottle. There is more of a head with the Hanssens as I think you can see from the photo to the left with a coating white froth and rim jumping up from the slightest swirl over the amber straw ale while the addition of an ounce of the Cantillon to the wine glass quickly dissipates to a fine thin white rim over more lemon tinged straw ale.

Each give off a tart brightness when subjected to brief nosal inquiry, the Hanssens having a bit richer aroma. In the mouth, there is a clear distinction with the Hanssens being not just vinegary but also somewhat creamy with an unsweetened grapefruit white thing – slight vanilla and tiny note of lime in the middle of a sea of unsweetened white grapefruit juice. The Cantillon is a little thinner with maybe pear, citrus pith and grass under the sour white grapefruit tartosity. BAers like the Cantillon a lot and the Hanssens a tiny bit more. Both lack the barnyard funk that I found so especially pungent and a wee bit foul with Cantillon’s Bruocsella 1990 Grand Cru the reaction to which was one trigger for these sour beer studies of mine.

I paid Cantillon 7.50 USD for the 375 ml Cantillon while the Hanssens was 4.99 USD. As a result, if you are going for just one of these to try a first dry gueuze, pick up the Hanssens even though the Cantillon is probably a tiny bit less tart. Someday I will sprinkle one of these on my french fries. And bit steamed or even coconut shrimp. The big question is still “do I like these beers?” When I was a teen, I played soccer for the high school team. After daily practice, I drank a litre of white grapefruit to cut the sweat and on a hot humid day these two tart ales reminded me of that. But I still want to try them on fries. Is that so wrong?

More sour beer studies here.

Session 6: One Fruit Beer – Kriek De Ranke, Wevelgem, BE

Greg had the power for today’s version of The Session for August and he picked fruit beer as the topic. To be utterly fair, if you are going to pick this topic, it has to be in August when all the world is plump with the results of all that “tra-la it’s May” of a few months ago.

It’s not like I am a stranger to the subject. I’ve posted a bunch of posts about fruit beer, whether sweet lambics, syruped experimentals from the Ottawa Valley, ranges from the Low Countries to ranges largely from North America. I know I was fascinated by the date dubbel from De Regenboog, I liked Floris Honey on a hot day, I am not entirely sure about Fruli but I hated Belhaven’s foul take. All in all, I think the Historic Ales of Scotland were the most interesting – including the seaweed one. And then there are my sour beer studies, trying to sort out some of the most severe confections there are.

But do I like fruit beer? I have no idea. So I am going to follow the posts today like the one from the great guys at Lost Abbey to pick up any threads or themes I see going and pop some sort of fruit beer later today.

Update From Amongst The Laundry: Heading out on holiday for a few days when you have kids starts and ends with laundry so we are a bit pinched for time here at beer blog HQ but we will suffer through with this evening with the help of a 750 ml of Kriek De Ranke, a traditional cherry lambic – qualifying this post for another entry in the sour beer studies as well as my entry for The Session. I picked this one up at Tully’s in Wells, Maine for 17 bucks, best before July 2006. The beer pours a light pink candy floor fine head over cloudy red cherry ale, the head resolving to thin foam. In the nose, more fruit than tart giving me hope that there is going to be some civility in the severity. The Beer Advocate gives this background on the beer:

De Ranke Kriek emulates the famed Oud Kriekenbier from the defunct Crombé brewery in Zottegem. De Ranke Kriek is a mixture of two blended soured pale ales and Girardin lambic, all steeped in whole fresh cherries from Poland and then aged for six months.

Did I mention I love Polish cherries, having worked there for four months? They are put to good use here. In the mouth, there is dry tart acid but also a good measure of true sludgy cherry fruitiness as well that works with some cream of wheatiness. On the swirl, a light cream aspect is added from the yeast, bracing up the body as well. This is quite a genial lambic or, according to the wrapper, “Belgian sour ale fermented with cherries with lambic added”, as there is plenty of the complexity – some of which is pleasant. Three others in the house for dinner tried it, did not screw up their faces yet declined another taste. That is pretty good for this style. Interestingly the paper wrapper says this brewery is a weekend working hobby for the brewery, something you might guess from their website. All 78 BAers love it.

Finally, I have a foothold in the world of dry lambics.

Sour Beer Studies: Gueuze Cuvée René, Lindemans, Belgium

I had great concerns about this beer given my whole Cantillon thing and my expectation of mouth puckering sourness. How wrong I was. While it is dry and even assertive in its acidity, this is no lemon.

On the nose there is fright fruit with some pear and berry. The beer pours a slightly cloudy deep straw with some lighter highlights. The head is a rich fine white with sheeting lace. In the mouth there is a creamy soft water aspect that frames the biscuity champagne blended with dry apple cider. Grassy notes with pear and even hints of strawberry. The acid is subtle, quite unlike Cantillon: gentle instead of strident. The Lindeman house style is definitely there – a minerally cream of wheat thing.

What did I learn? Sour beer can work with food. This would make a good strong counter point to a summer grill, fennel and prosciutto salad, herbed chicken or a lemony haddock bake. Strong but not universal approval from the BAers.

Sour Beer Studies: Rose de Gambrinus, Cantillon, Belgium

The famous nude lady sketch beer that outraged Maine or at least some officious Mainers. I never thought such a human condition was possible. Just to make a statement, I bought this 2005 375 ml bottling in Maine at the ever excellent Tully’s at York for $8.50 USD. However will I hide the empty from prying eyes as it sits in the recycling box by the curb?

Pinked amber ale under a slightly blushed fine white head, no doubt aware of the circumstances it found itself in. In the mouth, mild vinegar sour over Granny Smith. Not that much barnyardy poo in this one thankfully. There is a bit there but it melds with the over-riding under-ripe gravenstein apple effect. There is raspberry in the way that there is raspberry in raspberry vinaigrette except that there is no sweetness. After, though, you are left with an echo of the raspberry.

Most BAers approve. Do I? I am certainly less shocked having now had a few Cantillons. And I do find this one has a cream or maybe even vanilla note within the sharpness that I can’t imagine leaning on before like I do now, seeking a reason to approve. I certainly could see poaching a fillet of sole in this but the butter in the pan would temper it yet I have to admit that it is still more acidic than any white wine or rose I might enjoy. If the same fluid were labeled blanc de blanc, would we care so?

More sour beer studies here.