Clipper City Invades the Jefferson

Calling all pirates:  Clipper City is coming to town in a major way.

Founder Hugh Sisson will be on hand for the Heavy Seas beer dinner at the Jefferson, Richmond’s famously luxurious hotel. No stranger to beer dinners, TJ’s Restaurant is hosting this latest beer affair on February 11th at 7pm.

For $50 a person, that’s with tax and gratuity included, you’ll get the following culinary creations from Executive Chef James Schroeder paired with these Clipper City beers:

• Chef’s Hors d’oeuvres  with  Clipper City Marzhon 
• Grilled Prince Edward Island Mussels and Charred Tomato Jus, Billy Bread, Saffron Aioli  with  Small Craft Warning Uber Pils
•  150˚ Pork Rib Eye accompanied by Pearl Barley, Piquillo Peppers, Cipolini onions, Cider Reduction  with  Winter Storm “Category 5” Ale
•  Herb and Garlic Roasted Free Range Venison and Warm White Bean Salad, Pickled Onions, Green Peppercorn Jus  with  Loose Cannon Hop³ Ale
• “Tiramisu” Doughnuts, Whipped Mascarpone, Chocolate  with  Peg Leg Imperial Stout

So come on out, meet the ever-energetic Hugh Sisson and celebrate Valentine’s Day with your favorite Baltimore brewery. 

I think I’ve officially run out of pirate puns, but I know our friends at Clipper City haven’t, so I’ll let them do all the work at the dinner. When the servers arrive at your tables, ask them for Heavy Sea-soning.

Good Grief

This past weekend, it was on. The gravity reading indicated it was time to bottle my most recent batch of homebrew. Having reworked a saison recipe of mine, it tasted even better than the first attempt. A more attenuative yeast strain coupled with the same slow rise in temperature in primary yielded a very low final gravity without having to doctor it up any further. A sign of progress!

What seemed like an appropriate level of carbonation the first time around actually could have been increased, in my opinion. So while the initial saison turned out to be quite tasty, and sudsy, I thought a little more could go a long way to drying version 2.0 out and making it even better. With the priming solution taken care of, and subsequently the beer being doled out to each eager bottle, I began to wrap up weeks of hope and hard work.

That is, until the second bottle broke during capping.

In a slight panic and thinking on the fly, I ran to my toolbox and grabbed a flathead screwdriver to pry the cap and glass from my bottle capper. Luckily, I was able to free the detritus and get back to business.

Only now, the process was like pulling teeth, every capping an arduous and excruciating experience. I began talking to the capper, asking it to either release or seal the next bottle, sweat beginning to pool up on my forehead. This went on for some time, before I was reminded of the definition of insanity – that is, repeating the same action and expecting different results.

With roughly half the batch bottled, I threw in the towel. What I consider to be the best beer I’ve brewed to date had to be reduced to a handful of bombers and 12 oz. bottles due to a now-defunct capper. In truth, I can only assume that every bottle after the first was sealed properly (except for the broken one, of course).

At the time, the words “Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a Homebrew” entered my thoughts for a fleeting moment – then went down the drain with the beer from bottles I didn’t have the patience or energy to painstakingly cap.

A Word With Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes

That’s BFM for short.

Evening last I got the chance to talk all things beer with Jérôme Rebetez, brewer and founder of BFM.  His distinct beers coming out of Switzerland are gaining a cult-like status amongst beer cognoscenti in the US. Difficult to pin down, but more often than not delicious, Rebetez is yet another brewer bringing a winemaker’s approach to brewing and in the process issuing his own unique stamp on the beer world.

The stage was set for chaos. One back room at the popular Richmond Vietnamese restaurant Mekong featured tables populated with a good portion of the BFM lineup on ice, everything from La Meule to La Dragonne, and even before the 7pm start time eager patrons started filing in. Among them was yours truly. Thankfully, things went fairly well, albeit a bit disorganized to start.

After about a half hour of socializing and sampling, Rebetez grabbed the audience’s attention to discuss the beers on offer. Little detail was spared as he gave a humorous and animated speech about the origin of the name ”Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien” (named after the demise of the brewery cat), the relation of La Dragonne to Glühwein (since both are spiced and served warm), and the benefits of pairing Cuvée Alex Le Rouge over brandy with a cigar.

Amidst several beer lovers clamoring for tastes of limited quantities of special released barrel-aged versions of his beer, I asked Rebetez about the wine barrels that BFM is famous for using. Most famously, the barrels used for Vin Jaune wine native to the area of the brewery’s home turf of Jura, Switzerland. Brewing with barrels of any sort can be dicey, especially with the potential for resident micro-organisms to infect the beer (which for some styles can be a desired trait) or too much of the flavor profile of the previously stored liquid seeping into the new product. Rebetez indicated that either the winemaker or distiller will normally clean the barrels with hot water rather than chains used to strip the wood inside, and he uses them as soon as possible after acquiring them.

For those who haven’t yet had the good fortune to try his offerings, BFM has several beers in the lineup that display tartness or acidity, but Rebetez assured me that they do not employ spontaneous fermentation. “We use some Brettanomyces and bacteria in the barrels so we can ensure regular production. It’s very risky because of cross-fermentations.”

While you might expect that the use of regional wine barrels and establishing an esoteric brewery that is gaining international recognition would drive demand in his own backyard – you’d be wrong. Rebetez emphasized that even in his native Switzerland and neighboring France, there is a long way to go in educating the public in beer, even if it’s coming from a former winemaker. “Most people are interested in beers that do not offend, that have little taste. To me, that’s just boring.”

If the turnout was any indication, there are plenty of people in central Virginia who are also fed up with boring beers.

Higher End of the Spectrum

Back in October I made mention of my attempt at a Belgian Strong Dark Ale, one that started its gravity at over 1.100 and would need some time to mellow. Well tonight, I opted to crack a small bottle of it to see how things were progressing.

Having never gone that high in gravity or alcohol with any homebrew that I’ve concocted thus far, the task itself seemed a bit daunting. When I was preparing for the boil, draining some super dark malt syrup from my mash tun, I knew I had a beast of a beer on my hands. And if the yeast did its job properly, I’d been in for a high-alcohol treat.

So far, things are coming along rather swimmingly with this beer. It still has that inky blackness to it, with a touch of deep brown, and nearly three fingers of off-white head that sticks around for a while.

Giving it the swirl-and-sniff treatment, I pick up some date and dark fruit notes, a ghostly coffee aroma from the roasted malt, and a faint hint of booze since this beer clocks in at just over 10% abv.

The taste pretty much reflects the aroma, but the alcohol is not as noticeable on the palate – only slightly warming. There is a very drinkable quality to this beer because it doesn’t cling to the tongue too tightly, as it has a bone-dry finish. But, it does have too much of a treacly quality to it due to the carbonation, which was not as high as I would have liked. Not only that, but it could probably use a little more time in the bottle to smooth out the minimally rough edges that remain.

Overall, I’m quite happy with the way this beer is progressing, but realize that it could benefit from sitting a while longer. And if this is any indication, the spiced version should be doing much the same, perhaps even better with the added fruit character.

Patience is without a doubt the highest virtue of homebrewing.

Canadian Kellerbier

Zwickl, or Kellerbier, is a style that I absolutely adore. Tracing its Germanic origins, this “cellar beer” has the tradition of being aged in casks, unbunged. Due to this method of aging, it lacks much carbonation and is best served from the source when possible. Consider it the “real ale” of the lager world.

So what’s it doing in Canada? Microbrasserie Les Trois Mousquetaires has been issuing a variety of beer styles from their homebase in Brossard, Quebec, and I was lucky enough to acquire their take on Kellerbier.

Against conventional wisdom, this beer is packaged with a cork, cage and wire. The label proudly proclaims that they’re “inspired by Europe – brewed in Quebec,” and it shows. The initial pour gave me a fluffy, alabaster head of over three fingers, with the liquid itself being a hazy, burnt orange. The amount of head threw me off, however, as I’m used to the lower levels of carbonation in a Kellerbier. It’s almost like an authentic Bavarian version with a touch of Belgian carbonation.

But this attribute didn’t ruin the flavor. A soft touch of butterscotch and caramel is there, which is found in other Kellerbiers I’ve tried, and the Quebecois interpretation is not far off. In fact, the level of carbonation dries it out appropriately in the end, leaving a balanced Pilsner malt and earthy hop taste through to the finish.

So while this rings true to my idea of what a Kellerbier should be, it does have its own unique, distinguished twist.

A Word With Brasserie Fantôme

After this summer’s Relentless Thirst rare and vintage beer tasting, a funny thing happened. The endless web of social networking had, unbeknownst to me, worked in my favor. When a friend posted a picture on his Facebook profile of a bottle of 2004 Pissenlit and tagged its creator as the label, the brewer himself commented on seeing such an old bottle floating around, no less thousands of miles away in the United States. As a result, I was able to ask a few quick questions of Dany Prignon, the man behind Brasserie Fantôme.

Dany Prignon founded Brasserie Fantôme in 1988 with his father in Soy (pronounced “swa”), Belgium. It all began with Saison d’Erezée Printemps, a seasonal beer for Spring, and continued from there. Prignon discovered an old family recipe for farmhouse ale that offered variations using local elements to suit the season. Now, this mysterious microbrewery’s beers have reached several shores, creating a buzz amongst beer lovers in countries as far away as Italy, the United States, Finland, and Japan.

With Fantôme’s popularity on the rise, Prignon has begun to experience a need to expand. He admits that the work is becoming too much for him to handle by himself and that, after all, he “needs Euros to pay the bills.” Ever the experimentalist, he plans to release a very special barrel-aged beer that should be ready at some point next year.

According to Dany, a typical Fantôme beer will spend about five to seven days in primary fermentation, one week cooling, one week in the bottle to undergo secondary fermentation, and one week to let the beer stabilize and condition. Of course, there are the spices and additives that the brewery is famous for, which he protectively calls “a ghost’s secrets.”

Prignon explained that the brewery took its name from the legend of Countess Berthe of Érezee, who some say haunts a nearby castle, to reflect his particular region of Belgium. Despite being at the geographical epicenter of avant-garde brewing, Dany laments the state of beer and brewing today. “After 20 years, I find the same elements in a lot of beers. How about some originality please?”

As many beer lovers are already aware, Fantôme delivers that in full. With everything from honey, pepper, cocoa (and in one seasonal, what almost tasted like dill!) included in his portfolio of beers, Prignon is not afraid to experiment, and has made a few mistakes in his day. But for the most part, he continues to churn out delicious, one-of-a-kind beer that puts Soy on the map and adds Fantôme to Belgium’s long list of fantastic breweries.

Or should I say, phantasmic?

Made in North Carolina

Back in March, I created a brief blurb about the explosive growth of locally brewed beer in Asheville, North Carolina, and the support it’s received from a relatively small but adamant populace. With potentially four more brewing operations opening there in the very near future, don’t be surprised if Asheville takes the crown for best beer city in America. Recently, I got a chance to survey the landscape of our beer-loving neighbors to the south a little further when a friend from Asheville brought with him some fresh growlers from some prominent regional breweries.

The first one to get to my glass was Belgian Abbey from The Wedge, an Asheville staple. This one had a ruby-rust color to it, opaque and with a minimal head of soapy bubbles after the initial rush of carbonation, likely due to its growler format. In the nose, there was the scent of fructose, honey, and candi sugar that rode over top its inherent chocolate brown malt features. The carbonation was noticeable on the palate, but didn’t detract from the taste. Overall, it was an easy-drinking affair that faded semi-sweet in the finish, and kept me topping up once the glass got too empty.

As luck would have it, I was fortunate enough that my pal also brought along Foothills Brewing’s People’s Porter from Winston-Salem. I’m a sucker for a good porter, especially at this time of year. People’s poured nearly pitch black, showing off hints of mahogany and a deep beige head. Roasted malt and coffee notes took center stage, and a base of bittersweet chocolate drew me in. The introduction was deceiving. Though this beer comes in gently, it kicks up to a crescendo where the roasted malt flavor comes dangerously close to being astringent. The finish dries out, partly from a grain husk profile, but the body is divine. As each sip builds to a near syrupy thickness, it fades just as quickly in the end.

Lastly, I sipped Whiskey River IPA from Catawba Valley Brewing Company in Morganton. Some of you that know me or at least know some entries on this blog comprehend that I’m not a hop-head, nor am I a big proponent of barrel aging – especially when it comes to IPAs. The method reached a fever pitch with brewers oak aging just about any damn thing they made, which yielded undrinkable results. Naturally, I was hesitant to even try this beer. But I quickly learned that this was unreasonable.

Whiskey River IPA was suprisingly balanced, albeit different. To me, oak and hops don’t necessarily make the best combination, but when done right this type of aging can add depth without ruining the whole beer. The pour revealed a clear, goldenrod brew that disturbed me at first sniff. There was that oak note, but it wasn’t as prevalent as I was expecting, and it proved itself on the tongue to be quite delicious. I wouldn’t recommend just anyone oak aging an IPA, or any beer for that matter. But if you do it right, the outcome can be complex and different. And there’s always room for that in the beer world.

As for North Carolina’s brewery scene, I must say that I’m quite impressed. Having tasted beers from breweries all across the state, I can testify that their love of beer shows and it speaks for the market’s support of these local institutions. If you happen to pass through Carolina or, like me, have a friend that can score you some of this stuff, I’d highly recommend giving these breweries a shot.

Chronicles of a Homebrewer

Things haven’t been all quiet on the homebrewing front, I’ve just been neglecting to sit down and actually pen something about my recent adventures. But I’d like to use this space to provide you with an update regarding recent goings-on in my brewing laboratory kitchen.

At the beginning of August I had a hankering for some easy-drinking, thirst-quenching Best Bitter. So naturally I brewed a batch to sustain me well into the fall. Personally, I’m a huge fan of Maris Otter malt and opted for that as the base, with a half-pound Victory included for some biscuity complexity in the grain bill. Having procured some whole leaf Amarillo hops through Legend Brewing, I was able to dry hop that sucker in primary for a week, giving it a soft touch of floral hop goodness. So far, so good. It has served me well through September and into October, hitting the mark for what I was intending to do.

But with the weather changing over, it won’t be long before I’ll be switching gears. In September, I whipped up a batch of Belgian Dark Strong Ale with a healthy dose of dark and light candi sugar. This ended up giving me a starting gravity of over 1.100, and it was showing activity in the airlock a month after I pitched the yeast. The other night I racked into secondary to get it off the trub, and have some devious plans to spice and/or oak a portion of my creation, which will hopefully be ready around the holidays.

In keeping with the cold weather motif, this weekend, in collaboration with a friend of mine, I reverted to the old ways and brewed an extract beer. Despite the connotations that some of these beers may have in all-grain circles, this one is anything but boring. Essentially, it’s a Winter Warmer brewed with honey, figs, hazelnuts – and a little special malt from a well-known distillery in Scotland.

We set out to make a beer that was essentially a blank canvas, very light in character so that all the additions we’ve put into it can have their moment on the palate. It’s also something that we’re hoping will finish dry and retain drinkability due to the adjuncts. If anything, it’ll be complex; we’re hoping more than anything else that it’ll be good.

We have henceforth dubbed it: Figgy Stardust!