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New (but with an old styled label is the intriguing combo of coffee and lemon. I have had coffee versions of the famed Arnold Palmer tea/lemonade so this isn’t and out of leftfield idea and New Belgium does have history of coffee in beers working well so this will be one to look for.
I missed either by mistake or by cost last year’s special La Folie Gran Reserve release: Geisha. Now a new and even more intriguing barrel aging and nitrogen adding experience is on the way with PX. The PX stands for Pedro Ximénez, a white Spanish wine grape varietal that is used to produce the namesake Pedro Ximénez Sherry.
New Belgium and their barrel wranglers procured 20 of these rare sherry barrels and put La Folie inside. Then… “Once matured, 400 whole, hand-split Tahitian vanilla beans were infused into the sherry barrel-aged base beer for four months, swirled every day to intensify the combination of vanilla’s sweetness with existing fig, sour plum and cocoa flavors.”
I may splurge for this one.
This month, I am looking outside CA for the featured beer reviews and we start with New Belgium and their recent collaboration beer with Knob Creek, Oakspire.
This is a well crafted and balanced beer. Why? It is a barrel-aged stout without the stout. To be able to pull off the oak on a lighter beer is quite the trick. The burn is there but it just lingers in the corner, more as a reminder. You get malty Fat Tire-ness, you get toasted oak and the coconut from the spires. I am also getting some vanilla at the back to round the picture out. Amazingly there i zero sweetness. A barrel aged beer you want to buy a six-pack of.
I am not a super fan of the How I Built This podcast from NPR, but my wife is and thanks to her pointing it out, I got to listen to a decent little talk with Kim Jordan of New Belgium fame. Now I would have asked some other questions. More about women in beer and more about changing tastes. Maybe there were edits for time, I don’t know, but the podcast did give a nice amount of backstory. It’s worth a listen, so check it out HERE.
As if New Belgium didn’t have Foeders galore, now they have teamed with Knob Creek, the distillers for a brand new beer that focuses on char and spires and that sounds like it will spin off some great flavors.
New Belgium is kicking a World Cup collaboration beer into cans in advance of the U.S. absent soccer tournament.
The Colorado brewery has teamed up Adnams (England), Baird (Japan), Bodebrown (Brazil), Devil’s Peak (South Africa) and Primus (Mexico) to create an easy drinking kolsch that includes chamomile (which apparently is the national flower of Russia) and lemongrass, because you can’t add artificial turf to a beer.
The other five breweries will brew and distribute their version of Bicycle Kick in their respective markets. You might have to do some serious traveling to collect them all.
It seems science is trying to get ahead of both economics and politics. First I learned of yeast that could emulate hops, then I read about a abnormal hop glut and now, we be getting hemp-y. From Colorado of course. Due in part to hemp hearts in the new beer from New Belgium called The Hemperor.
New Belgium calls it a “game-changing union of hops and hemp, plants genetically related that produce similar organic aromatic compounds known as terpenes. This ale is brewed with hemp hearts (the meat of the seed, minus the shell) and dry-hopped with Simcoe and experimental HBC 522 hops to create a dank, pungent hop aroma balanced by a sweet, mildly bitter finish. Federal law prohibits brewers from using hemp leaf and flower, so New Belgium brewers found a creative solution using other natural plant materials that perfectly emulate those hemp terpenes.”
That is followed with the disclaimer that The Hemperor HPA contains no THC or CBD.
Obviously, there are major issues surrounding anything marijuana related but if we can talk about it and really test it and maybe regulate it with actual science (sorry Trump/Pence and/or any Republican) we can make a better judgement. For those who are pro the fact that “New Belgium is also partnering with GCH Inc, the company founded by Willie Nelson and family to build brands inspired by his journey as an artist and advocate, in supporting the national campaign”, Hemp 4 Victory might be all the conversation you need because “one dollar from every barrel of The Hemperor HPA sold will be donated to Hemp 4 Victory in support of its mission to raise awareness and promote pro-hemp bills in the House & Senate.” Where they will probably die a quick death because, let’s face it. Those two bodies politic aren’t outside the box thinkers or problem solvers.
A new little micro trend in #independent beer is the blending and mixed beers. Now New Belgium has made it super easy with guided recipes to use.
This variety box has the usual fare plus a newbie. Fat Tire Belgian White, 1554, Citradelic Tangerine IPA, Abbey, Trippel, and the all-new Cellar Blender.
This may be hit or miss but it would be a fun holiday party activity.
New Belgium has a fancy new beer in the pipeline suitable for special occasions.
Geisha combines the namesake coffee from Panama at Hacienda La Esmeralda with La Folie sour ale. According to the press release this makes for “the coffee’s brilliant mandarin and soft jasmine floral notes which play nicely with the sour plum and cocoa flavors synonymous with La Folie.”
The special coffee was sourced from Fellow B Corp, Sustainable Harvest of Portland.
Here is the info about where the beans came from: “The lands that make up Hacienda La Esmeralda where first brought together as a single estate by a Swede named Hans Elliot in 1940. Coffee had been growing on lands in and around Hacienda La Esmeralda since at least, 1890, and it was this huge reservoir of coffee knowledge and culture that helped the Petersons redevelop much of their land for coffee farming and even make their first coffee farm expansion at Palmira in 1988. It was a happenstance of altitude and lot separation that discovered Geisha’s amazing flavors and aromatics.”
New Belgium sent me a nice little box with two of their new beers in them. One I was jazzed to get a free bottle of and the other, I was on the fence about.
Let’s get to it…
Sour Saison
Getting Concord grape. Dry. Some vinous notes too. Wheat in the background pops up as well. Not particularly sour. More a 50% tart than anything. That tart fades quickly. Some barnyard funk hiding in the background.
VooDoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin
Cinnamon bursts out when you pop the cap. Plenty of habanero heat to go with the large dose of spice. Could feel it on my upper lip. Falls into both the spice and purée camp for me. Beautiful brilliant orange color. Pumpkin comes in strong at the end. Liked it better than I thought I would.
The Sour Saison is the understated one of the pair and the Atomic Pumpkin is a blast of flavor. Where you land on the subtlety to agressive scale will decide which you like best. I go for the Sour Saison.