Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
This new sour from Smog City uses second run peaches with a touch of lavender. Pours a yellow/orange color. Peach skin lightly hits the nose. The taste is quite gentle with a peach flesh and close to pie spice mix but the sour really amps the total package up. The lavender is hitting from a different angle. As it warms, it takes on a lemonade quality. One of JP’s recent favorites and I can see why.
Sierra Nevada has been pumping out the Hazy Little Thing and IPA’s a plenty but what caught my eye recently was the label above. Wild Ale aged in wine barrels? That is certain to go on the shopping list.
Lost Abbey is known for sours and wild beers and big format bottles so it was with wonder that I saw six-packs on the shelves. One is Devotion, a blonde ale and the other is a Farmhouse lager. Now it’s time to match up these 12oz’rs and see which is better…
Devotion Blonde Ale
Very complex and yeast driven. Farmhouse funk. A heavy hand of clove to it. Orange peel. Sharp.
Farmhouse Lager
Pours an unexpected dark orange. Tastes more like a Vienna. Clean and simple. A hearty table beer.
Great labels on both and though the Devotion is more of a sipper than the normal blonde ales on the market, I prefer it over the lager. I also hope that more Lost Abbey beers get the 12oz treatment.
Those in South Minneapolis will get to look through a wall-sized window and either watch the paint dry or look at the foudres where mixed-fermentation magic will be going on inside the wood. Wild Mind Artisan Ales beers will be aged for anywhere from six to 12 months.
Brewer/Founder Matt Waddell has plans to dedicate most of his 16 draft lines to the wild and farmhouse-style ales. Amping up the sour and brett as time passes and customers acclimate to the beer.
Since they literally opened a day or so ago, those fancy beers like barrel-fermented saisons won’t be at the tap room now but you will be able to try their Table Beer, Hoppy French Saison, Hoppy Rye Wild Ale among others.
All thanks to the foudres and Waddell’s “Carefully chaotic” style.
Now that is a brewery name! A little odd but centered on a personal story from the past. And though I usually just drive right through Newberg on the way to McMinnville. That story and the actual farmhouse where the farmhouse ales will be brewed would be too tempting not to stop at. Plus there is a Jester King brewing connection and they already have done collaborations with another pair of favorite breweries in Odell’s and The Commons.
So check out their CrowdBrewed appeal video and help another Wolves & People to open. I will be bugging people to get the bottles down here to SoCal.
It’s early I know but Boston has a new brewery slated to brew in 2012 that does farmhouse ales. Trillium (as reported in BrewBound) will be in the Fort Point section of Boston.
Is farmhouse the new trend?
The Portland brewery boom shows no sign of abating! Burnside Brewing just cracked open their doors and now another nano is moving forward with their brews!
“Beetje (\’bee-cha’\) is a Flemish word that roughly translates to “little”, or “little bit”. This brewery will live up to that notion for the foreseeable future.
Beetje will produce small batch beers using high quality ingredients. I intend to use organic 2-row and organic pilsner as my base malts. As much as possible I will use organic specialty malts, and hops. Sound familiar? Yeah, a lot of breweries do this, particularly in the Northwest. I like the approach, and intend to employ it. Quality inputs tend to have a positive impact on the beer”
And here are the beers you can try….
B-sideABV: 5.5% || IBU: 30
B-side is a light , crisp and refreshing farmhouse ale. Golden to light orange in color with a floral nose and a dry finish. B-side is brewed with three base malts: Organic Pilsner, Organic 2-row and Rye. Northwest grown Willamette, Golding and Hallertauer aroma hops offer a soft underlying bitterness to help bolster the refreshing nature of the beer. The key note speaker in this beer is the Farmhouse Ale yeast.
Traditionally farmhouse ales were brewed on farms in the French and Flemish regions of Belgium. These beers were born out of necessity as most water was not potable and the farmers needed a light, refreshing low alcohol beverage to offer the hardworking farmhands.
Little Brother
ABV: 8.5% || IBU: 20
Little Brother is in the vein of a Belgian dark strong ale. By Northwest standards an 8.5% beer may not be considered strong, but it is currently the biggest beer Beetje produces. It pours dark brown, with shades of ruby and a creamy tan head. The flavor is dominated by caramel, and candy and offers a smooth finish. Chocolate and coffee begin to emerge as the beer warms.
Flemish KissABV: 5.7% || IBU: 35-40
A clean Northwest pale ale with a subtle kiss of Flanders. Brewed predominantly with organic 2- row, the malt bill is rounded out with organic light munich, organic 60L crystal and caravienna. Northwest Golding and Hallertauer hops provide a pleasant hop character. Right out primary fermentation this beer is decidedly a Northwest pale ale, but as it enters secondary a bridge to Belgium is built with a dose of brettanomyces bruxellensis.
Does this sound great? Yes, it does.
A farmhouse brown ale with…
-pomegranate seeds
-grains of paradise
-Tasmanian peppercorns
from Upright Brewing
Belgian is obviously the style of 2009. From The Bruery in Orange County to Ommegang in New York, it is where the cutting edge of brewing is happening.
Now I hear through the grapevine about two new offerings from Chicago’s Goose Island. Juliet which is a Belgian Sour and Sofie which is a farmhouse ale. They are now on my ever expanding list of beers I really need to taste.
If you have sampled them and have an opinion you would like to vent then comment below. I would enjoy seeing what people think.