Know Your Styles: Berliner Weisse

Urban Chestnut's Berliner Weiss 

As we approach the end of one of the best summers I can remember in Indiana a beer style I've had an affinity for is the Berliner Weisse style. This once obscure style at one time was brewed by over 700 breweries in Berlin, but it has been on the decline in Berlin for many decades.

This is a style that is finding a big home here in the United States, however.  At the Indiana Microbrewers Festival I was very pleased to see a number of breweries taking on this wonderful summer style.

The beginnings of this style are murky at best.  I've found articles saying there are references to it as far back as the 1500's.  The style peaked in the 1950's in Germany and has nearly been shuttered with only three larger scale breweries producing the beer in Berlin. This was also a very popular style in the United States after the Civil War with German immigration to the United States, but the style died with Prohibition.  The good news is that with the innovation in the American market we are starting to see this style all over the US, and some of those even making their way to packaging to the consumer.  Most likely though if you see a Berliner Weisse available it will be directly at the brewpub or brewery.

At is core Berliner Weisse is a wheat beer with usually 50%  or more wheat malt.  Traditionally it is very low in alcohol.  It is usually sub-4.5% ABV, but you will find some Berliner Weisses with strength above that.  They are slightly tart and acidic with an almost yogurt-like sour punch up front, but they are crisp and refreshing on the finish. It is one of those beers that you want to have several in a sitting on a warm day.  If you are really lucky that would be in a beer garden somewhere with plenty of good friends and conversation.  As a kid lemonade defined a summer drink for me, but now as adult this beer fits that mold for me.

Sometimes you might see places that will mix Berliner Weisse with syrups.  You might see woodruff and raspberry syrup quite often.  That was really so that people could control their level of tartness before modern temperate control and brewing technology.  I actually prefer my beer without the syrups now, and I think they taste just great.

Bottled versions you can buy in Indy:

The Bruery's Hottenroth  and 1809 Berliner Weiss (Professor Fritz Briem).
A real rarity is Three Floyds I < 3 Deesko.  Love the beer and the label art.  

Be on the lookout though for this style when you are at your local brewpub.  Hopefully you will see one before the summer is over.

This is a style I hope we continue to see more and more from in the coming years.

Cheers!

Matt

Know Your Styles: Gueuze

Many people are discovering the pleasure that sour ales have to offer drinkers.  I am not entirely comfortable with the term "sour" or "sour style ales," but that is the best we've got for the time being.  I will only say that the mark of beers that fall under "sour categories" doesn't mean that more sour = better quality.  That couldn't be further from the truth, and I fear that the path we are heading down makes it seem that way.  The race for mouth puckering sourness is heating up with each new American brewery that begins producing these beers.  I think that does a great injustice to beers that fall into this category of beers that include: Berliner Weiss, Oud Bruin, lambic, Flanders Red, and fruited lambics.  

Gueuze is a fantastic style of beer that falls into this category, and gueuze's are extremely labor intensive and require much patience.  These spontaneously fermented beers are a blend of young and old lambic. That is important to understand.  Lambic is the base beer for gueuze.   This can range from as young as four months to as old as three years and just about anything in between.  A master blender is then charged with knowing when and how to blend these ageing casks of lambic.  These can then range from anywhere to 15% young-to-old to 70% young-t0-old.  Once the casks and blending amounts have been chosen the bottles are then are aged horizontally for at least year (or longer) where they undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle.  The residual sugars left in the young beer will continue to ferment out of the blend and create the champagne-like effervescent quality of gueuze. Then, finally, the beer is shipped to thirsty consumers worldwide.  That is a tremendous amount of work for a beer isn't it?  

Several brewers in Belgium are brewing this beer on their own and going through the entire process from brewing, blending, ageing, and distribution.  A very small number of places actually purchase lambic from other brewers and then age, blend, package, and distribute from that point.  I can't imagine that business ever taking off in America, but I find it very interesting that that type of business exists in Belgium. 

These beers should be served slightly chilled to get the most appreciation for the many nuances of the beer in nose and taste.  

Eyes: Gueuze will usually be a golden color with a medium to large white head that will last most of the beer. 

Nose:  The mark of a great gueuze will be balance.  The tart and acidic scents should be balanced with scents of orchard and citrus fruits.  Some gueuze's will have more wood flavors based on aging as well. 

Taste: Balance is again key for the mark of a great gueuze. The flavor profile should have that barnyard/acidic funk right beside the apple, melon, lemon, and grapefruit flavors that can be tasted in many beers in this style. 

Overall: Gueuze's are not for everyone, but the beauty is in the details for these beers.  A true work of art and craftsmanship in your glass. The price point for these beers is actually pretty low when you think about how much time and effort when into these beers, and a small bottle of these types of beer are worth a chance at least once. 


Commercial Examples: Brouwerij Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueuze (pictured), Hanssens Oude Gueuze, Cantillon Gueuze: 100%, Lou Pepe, and Lindeman Gueuze

Cheers! 

Matt 

Know Your Styles -- Oatmeal Stout

Oatmeal stout is my favorite style under the category of stout.  If you want to get technical about it all stouts come from the mother style: porter.

Oatmeal stout was actually a dead style for a number of years in England.  The famous beer writer Michael Jackson lamented the loss in his book The World Guide to Beer.  The owner of Merchant Du Vin (Charles Finkel) had Samuel Smith brew one. That beer relaunched interest in the style and now they are a very popular style among American craft breweries and brewpubs.

Oatmeal stouts are most often easy on the ABV ranging from 4% to 6%.  The addition of the oats gives the beer a much fuller mouthfeel that is silky smooth and a little sweet from the oat addition.

Here are things that you are going to get in the style:

Eyes: Oatmeal stouts will with be very dark brown to almost black in color.  They will usually have a massive cap of foam on them from a non-aggressive pour that will range from off-white to tan in color.

Nose: The main player in this beer is going to be the roasted grain smell.  This should be upfront and should be pleasant, but not overpowering. Other flavors can range from coffee, toffee, and in rare instances even dark fruit.  Traditional standards would have the dark fruits as unwanted, but if it tastes good then drink it. The grains used for oatmeal stouts can use pale malt, crystal malt, chocolate malt, black patent malt, roasted barley, and 5 to 15% oatmeal in the mash to give it the name. The style can have up to 30% oatmeal addition, but if you have ever homebrewed an oatmeal stout I can't imagine the mess that would make with that high of an addition of oats.  Hops traditionally are only used for bittering, but some American brewers are a little heavy handed and may exhibit hop aroma if that is the brewers intention.

Mouth: This is where oatmeal stouts shine.  The mouth will be full, silky, creamy, and smooth.

Overall: Oatmeal stouts will be roasty, filling, slightly sweet, and satisfying 

Commercial Examples:  Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, Goose Island Oatmeal Stout, Rogue Shakespeare Stout, Velvet Merlin-Firestone Walker Brewing

Local Examples: Barley Island-Brass Knuckles, Lafayette Brewing Company-Black Angus Oatmeal Stout, Zaius - Sun King Brewing Company

Also, if anyone from Three Floyd's reads this blog please bring back the greatest oatmeal stout of them all: Hell's Black Intelligencer.

Cheers!
Matt

Know your styles -- Pilsner

It is the most popular style of beer in the world, and I would say the least appreciated by beer geeks.  It is really a shame that more craft beer geeks do not embrace the pilsner style.  It isn't exciting enough for them or it is vilified because the big three call themselves pilsners.  The truth for me is that a well made pilsner is one of  the most delicious beers I've had the pleasure of consuming.  It won't knock you over with fully forward flavor, but will knock you over with a true art form in your glass. I will admit I wasn't always like this and I stayed away from the style after I got into craft beer, but now that I've found out how much I love a good pilsner there is no going back.  The world just flat out needs more big ass glasses of all-malt pilsners.

Background:

The Germans have been brewing lagers since sometime in the 1400's.  They were typically dark, murky, and cloudy brews.  It would be nearly 450 years until a new style of lager came into existence.  In just 160 years the style would become the most consumed style of beer in the world.

This is another bit of folklore that probably has some truth in the story.  The story that I read the most about the  birth of the pilsner style starts with thievery   A monk in Germany stole bottom fermenting yeast from a brewery in Germany and brought it to Plzen in the current day Czech Republic  The town of Plzen was tired of the inconsistency of their beer and built a new brewery for the town. They then hired a brewer from Germany to brew in their new brew house by the name of  Josef Groll.  Groll was Bavarian by birth, and his father owned a brewery in Germany. He was already familiar with the pale malts being used in England after studying brewing there, and Groll was already experimenting with bottom fermenting yeast by the time he arrived in Plzen. Plzen has nearly the same climate as Bavaria and brewers could keep the barrels of beer cool during the warm summer months in massive underground caves.  Mr. Groll brought consistent German brewing techniques with Czech ingredients to create a new style of beer.  At the time the brown Bavarian lager would have been one of the most consumed beers in Europe.

German brewers were still using healthy portions of darker malt in their beers near this time.  Groll used the lightest pale malt he could find and when the first batch was tapped they had the clearest and most golden lagered beer that anyone had ever seen.  The long maturation process produced a wonderfully carbonated beer with a huge head of perfect white froth on top of it. It was crisp and refreshing and got everyone talking about it immediately.  The beer was being poured into actual glassware, and so for one of the first times in history people were drinking with their eyes just as much as with their other senses on a massive scale.  Glassware wasn't just for the rich anymore.  It was 1842 and pilsner style beer from Plzen was starting its rapid ascent as the favorite beer of the world.

How did the pilsner go from an all-malt and wonderfully hoppy creation to the mass produced toilet water that is produced today by the mega-brewers?

Its like Lenin said: "You look for the person that will benefit"....I am the Walrus? Shut the fuck up Donny!

Pilsner really should be recognized like the Champagne region of France or Stilton cheese from England or any other regionally specific product that can carry that name, but because no one got around to trademarking the name until 1859 the damage had already been done and pilsner style beer was everywhere using that name and basic recipe. The name pilsner simply means beer from Plzen and the name Budweiser originally meant beer from Budweis.  This new beer started a firestorm of discussion around Europe and people were there to capitalize on the name. It wasn't until 1898 that the original brewery that Josef Groll brewed the very first pilsner lager changed its name to Pilsner Urquell or "Orignal Pilsner" in Czech.  This also coincided with great industrial change around the world.  Refrigeration was being pioneered, Louis Pasteur finally helped everyone understand just how important yeast was in the process of beer making, railways made it easy for regional breweries to get their beers out to more thirsty patrons.  Because of industrialization and the buzz around the pilsner style this beer became the mark of the times and it never looked back. It was a case of man, moment, and machine that really caused pilsner style beer to take off.  The mega-brands have all been brewing this style of beers for many years and calling it pilsner, but they have taken away just about anything from it that makes it true to its original form.  The quality of barley, lower hopping rates, adjuncts and fillers, and much quicker lagering times have reduced an amazing style of beer to little more than industrial imitation sliced cheese. It is still beer in the academic sense, but is so bastardized from the original it has no business calling itself a pilsner beer or beer for that matter.

This is where advertising has done injustice to the style.  Many beer geeks associate pilsner with this, but my friends, that couldn't be further from the truth.  My first drink of a true pilsner changed the way I thought about beer in general.  It was crisp, clean, refreshing, and amazing conducive to conversation.   Pilsner should be consumed as close to the source as possible. We don't have many people doing pilsners here, but you can certainly find a number of really good ones.

The BJCP splits pilsners into three distinct categories.  Those are Bohemian (Czech) pilsners, German pilsners, and American pilsners.

German pilsners (pils) are distinct because they will be drier and crisper than their Czech counterparts, but the Germans modeled their beer after the Czech's.  It will use only pilsner malt, German noble hops, and German lager yeast.

Bohemian/Czech pilsners will also be crisp, hoppy, spicy, floral, sometimes grassy, and deliciously malty.

American pilsners were copies of the German pilsners that immigrants brought with them to America.  They used what was around and will many times included corn in the process.

Commercial examples:

German pilsners: People's brewing company: People's pilsners, Victory Prima Pils, Lefthand Polestar Pilsners, Brooklyn Pilsner, Rogue's Uber Pils

Czech pilsners: Upland Preservation pilsner, Sam Adam's Noble Pils, Shiner 101 Czech style pilsner, Sierra Nevada Summerfest, Oskar Blue's Mama's Little Yella Pils, Pilsner Urquell, Golden Pheasant from  Pivovar Zlaty Bazant a.s. (available in Indiana) and Budweiser Budvar

I would highly recommend giving a real pilsner another chance when you see one at your favorite local brewery or pub. 

Cheers!

Matt 

Sources:
Oliver, Garrett. The Brewmaster's Table, Discovering The Pleasures Of Real Beer With Real Food. Ecco, 2005. Print.


Papazian, Charlie. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. 3. New York: Harper Collins, 2003. Print.

Know your beer styles - Saison

I've talked a great deal about the idea of education will get Indiana to where it needs to be among other craft beer drinking states, so this is my attempt at putting my money where my mouth is. I just want to point out that I am not a BJCP judge, Cicerone certified, or anything else. I am simply a very passionate beer drinker that has read just about everything I can get my hands on, and spent a great deal of time trying to train my palate. That is a fancy way of saying I like to drink beer. The first style I want to cover is the classic saison. Why start here? I think that the saison style is one that has so much versatility and is very approachable by any beer drinker.

The saison, or farmhouse, style is a classic style from Belgium, in the French speaking region called Wallonia. The word "saison" means season in French. This correlates to a time before refrigeration and the brewing of beers stopped at the end of the cool season. The beer needed to be strong enough to last until the next brewing season, but yet light and refreshing enough for working class citizens in the heat of summer. This style almost became extinct, but much revitalization has pumped life back into the style in Belgium and is becoming very popular with American brewers. I've also read that drinking saison in the summer was also for health reasons. Those reasons being that regular water could kill you, and fermented beer wouldn't.

I will start with bottle packaging. Saisons from Belgium will typically come in very heavy champagne style glass bottles that are corked and caged. A few American brewers are doing this as well, but many are doing their packaging in 22 oz bombers. They are almost always undergo a second fermentation in the bottle. Bottle conditioned beers will many times have sediment in them or suspended yeast. Most brewers don't want you to pour that in your beer, but it won't kill you if it does.

The pour on the majority of saisons will be a sight to behold. A non-aggressive pour will reveal a huge rocky head that will likely last the entire beer and will leave sticky lace all over your glass. The color will range from a pale or golden orange color to a rustic amber red color. The true greatness of the saison style is in the nose and flavor. Brewers can use a whole range of aromatics and additions to saisons to range in flavor from peppery, fruity, bitter, sweet, acidic, and earthy. Many times you can taste all of those flavors at different times in the same beers progression. My favorite saison is from Fantome and each bottle is always slightly different, and keeps me looking forward to the next time I get to have a bottle.

Why are these beers so amazing to me? It is in their versatility. The saison can be paired with just about any food that you can come up with, but I particularly enjoy it with very spicy foods. All of the earthy, spicy, sweet, sour, and bright flavors that are found in spicy food are matched by the saison style. This is also a wonderfully refreshing beer to have for outdoor grilling as well. It can elevate chicken, ribs, steaks, and even sausage. This is truly one of the most versatile beers that you can find with it comes to food and beer pairings. If you are ever going to a dinner party and want to bring a bottle of something that will work on everyone with just about any food then choose the saison.

My favorites in the style that are available locally: Fantome Saison, (It comes in a big green bottle with a ghost on the front of it) Saison Dupont, Boulevard's Saison Brett, Goose Island Sofie, Ommegang Hennepin

Not available locally: Surly Cynic ale, Jack D'Or from Pretty Things, Anna from HillFarmstead

Cheers!
Matt