An Underground Beer Culture Surviving in Wine Country Part 2

My next few attempts at finding delicious beer in France were nothing short of brilliant successes.  One of the days when we were walking around the city of Narbonne, we had stumbled upon an underground bar/brewery that was advertising lambics for only 2.50€.  But, of course, with our luck it was closed.  I do have the best wife in the world though, and she promised me that we could go back another night.

Well that night came and it was everything I could ever want in a bar.  L'Antre de l'Echoppe was literally an underground beer culture.  It was a tiny brewpub that was built into an old cobblestone cellar with a medieval theme and with plenty of both domestic and import beers on tap for reasonable prices.  This brewpub was so small in fact that they actually brew in the bar, and when it is open, they just push the equipment off to the side.





They only had two of their own beers on tap, but they were both spectacular. 



The first that we had was La Blonde Maison.  At 5% ABV, this was an extremely easy drinking beer.  It was cloudy, very light, and fruity with a slight sharpness at the end.  La Noire Maison was another 5% ABV beer.  Surprisingly, for having a dark, strong, and chocolaty aroma it was unexpectedly light.  It had a deep chocolate malt flavor with almost no linger.  I hope that some day I am fortunate enough to get back to Narbonne and to L'Antre de l'Echoppe again.

When we went up to Carcassonne after Narbonne, I was hell bent on finding some Biers de Carcassonne, but we had no such luck.  We did however find a couple of other beers in a small boutique shop.  At first I was a little skeptical about them, but chilled that night in our Barcelona I indulged and was more than satisfied.



Abbaye Fontfroide not only is a remarkably beautiful abbey outside of Narbonne, but the namesake has been used for an artisanal beer.  The nose is a very subtle spicy (peppery) aroma from the yeast, and there is an excellent head, so good, it made pouring difficult.  It was very heavy beer that was both sweet and spicy notes that shockingly did not linger long at all.  There was an excellent floral flavor as well, and after tasting some of the raw honeys in the area, I would not be surprised if that was where it was coming from.



We never went to the Abbaye de Valmange, but much like Fontfroide, they lent their name to a beer.  It was extremely aromatic with overpowering caramel notes.  The beer itself some subtle spicy notes along with the chocolate and caramel flavors. 

So in the end, I would have to say I am pretty impressed with the beers the south of France had to offer.  (Their wines weren't that bad either.)  I just wish I wouldn't have been so blind when I was traveling around Europe in the past not searching an scouring for the artisan beers.  I can only imagine how many delicious ones I have missed on my travels.

Primary: German Pilsner
Secondary: Lite American Lager, Ginger Ale
Carbonating: Honey Dunkelweisen
Total for 2011: 65 Gallons

An Underground Beer Culture Surviving in Wine Country Part 1

I was a bit skeptical at first and for good reason. Sure, in northern France you can find some great breweries, including the ones that are credited with reviving the Bière de Garde and the Bière de Mars styles, but in southern France, the heart of wine country, really?  At one point the master blender at the estate we were at (Château des Karantes) had remarked to us that the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France (where we were) produces more wine in one year than all of Australia combined.  And I was supposed to find good beer here?  I went in a skeptic, but I came away a believer.

My first experience was at a small cafe in Gruissan.  There were signs in the window tempting: 'Découvrez nos bières artisanales.'  It was a hot day and I was quite parched, so it was my duty as an inquisitive brewer to partake in a nice cool, frosty beverage
 

La Néou is an aromatic, 5% ABV white beer brewed with spices and water from the Pyrenee mountains range.  It was a light, sweet wheat beer, and it had light honey notes to it. (Honey is one of things that this region of the world prides itself on, so it makes sense that they would use it in their beer.)  There was the slightest diacetyl (butterscotch) flavor to the beer, but it wasn't off putting at all.  It actually worked very well with the beer.  These pleasant flavors lingered for a while and it was a perfect way to quench my thirst on the Mediterranean coast.

My next sampling wasn't a beer, but a cider, and being it is my goal to familiarize myself across the lines of the BJCP guidelines, I thought it would be another great learning experience.

 

I am not an expert in ciders by any means, so I do not know if it is actually one of the high quality ciders on the market, but I do have to say it was one of the best I've ever tasted.  It was Loïc Raison's Cirdre Breton Brut.  At 4.5% ABV it is relatively low alcohol compared to most that I have drank in the past, but it's flavors were unmatched.  Upon the first sip, you're hit with a light, dry crisp flavor that has just a touch of sweetness and a hint of honey.  The more and more I drank, the more the tannin flavors of the skin became present and gave the illusion that you were biting into an apple.  It was a wonderful thing to have happen.  Flavors like this are going to be hard to match when I start making ciders, and I can only hope to achieve results close to this.

This one completely ripped off Delirium Tremens (only a pig instead of an elephant), so how could it be bad?  The big pink pig was calling my name and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.  Had I been able to speak and read French a bit better, I may have steered clear (Rince Cochon translates to Pig Rinse...ugh...).

 

Although this beer is very crisp and refreshing like a lager, it is actually an ale that has a very soft nose, similar to a pilsner, and just slightly fruity, like an English ale.  The flavor and after taste were exactly the same, the slightest maltiness along with a hoppy/fruity after taste.  Though this beer wasn't necessarily what I was looking for, it did have a nice sweetness and crispness to it that has its own time and place, and a BBQ in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea was just that (though I do not think that is what the brewers had in mind since it is from Belgium).

Look out for part two of this series later this week... 

Primary: German Pilsner, Ginger Ale
Secondary: Lite American Lager
Carbonating: Honey Dunkelweisen
Total for 2011: 65 Gallons

Widmer Brothers Brewers Reserve #2 - Prickly Pear Braggot

I've tried to become a bit more active using the 33 Bottles of Beer book that Jay got me, but I just cant help the fact that I get wrapped up in drinking the beer rather than rating it.  This beer was one that I picked up from Beers of the World a couple weekends ago, and I couldn't wait any longer to try it.  I have never had a prickly pear beer before, or a pear beer for that matter, so I was walking in without knowing exactly what to expect.  What I did end up getting was an excellent beer that was deceptively alcoholic.



This beer has a very light color, similar to that apple juice, and although it had a great malty flavor and aroma, the head did not last too long and reminded me of the level of carbonation of a sparkling hard cider.  There was not a strong hop aroma or flavor in the beer, but there was a very heavy fruity/estery flavor and an aroma that was reminiscent of apple blossoms, (perhaps prickly pear blossoms, never smelled them before so I'm not sure).

Enough cannot be said about the body, maltiness, and linger of this beer.  The longer you held the beer in your mouth the better.  Over time, the spicy notes traveled from the tip of your tongue to the back of your mouth.  The flavor and the linger lasted for over a half minute.  Sour, bitter, and astringent notes were practically non existent in this beer, and for being listed as 10%, this beer can really sneak up on you since it does not have a strong alcoholic aroma or taste.

On Deck: Chocolate Chipotle Rauchbier (2/27), Chili Lime Pilsner (3/6)
Primary: Elder Ale, Belgian Blonde
Secondary: Nada
Conditioning: Irish Red Ale

Beers of the World

Last weekend, Marygrace and I went out to Rochester for a birthday party, this seemed like the perfect time to make a stop at one of my favorite stores, Beers of the World.  It is housed in an old supermarket, so there are literally isles and isles of beer after beer.

On the most recent trip, I was sent out to pick up some ACME IPA and Augustiner Edelstoff.  (For Edelstoff, the export beer, the story goes that it won so many gold medals that they decided to make the label all gold.)  While I was there, I had to pick up a few bottles for myself.  Those ended up being the Widmer Brothers Brother's Reserve #2 - Prickly Pear Braggot, Arcadia Ales Sky High Rye, and Breckenridge Agave Wheat.

I haven't gotten around to trying the Prickly Pear Braggot as of yet, since I have been saving it for a special occasion, but I have greatly enjoyed the other two brews.  The Sky High Rye is an excellent Rye Pale Ale.  It is light in color with a fair amount of bitterness and with the typical rye spice that would be expected.  It was all I was hoping for out of this beer, nothing spectacular, but a great overall beer.

The Agave Wheat was also quite a treat.  One of my favorite parts about drinking a Weizen is being able to swirl the last bits of beer with the yeast and pour out the cloudy goodness.  This beer does not disappoint on that level.  The Agave is extremely present in both aroma and flavor. Hops however are not too noticable and I would have to imagine that an American wheat yeast was used since there are no strong clove or banana flavors present.

It was a great trip.  I cant want till the next one...whenever that may be...

By the way, Jay recommended that I add the Android Brewster App, where you can add the beers that you are drinking, rate them on a simple scale of 1-5 and share them with your friends.  I did, so friend me if you feel like sharing what you are drinking: aaron.piskorowski (at) gmail.com.

On Deck: Belgian Blonde (2/20), Chocolate Chipotle Rauchbier (2/27)
Primary: Elder Ale, Sarsaparilla Ale
Secondary: Irish Red Ale
Conditioning: Beef on Weck Ale

Fancy Beer Night Round 1

I'm just going to start off by saying that Saturday was a great day for beer all around.  In Buffalo, Flying Bison hosted their annual chili cook-off and raised over $1,100 for Cornerstone Manor, a women and children shelter in Buffalo.  They had a lot of their beers to sample such as Blizzard Bock, their Barley wine, and an oatmeal pale ale, all of which were quite delicious.  They even had 6 packs of the 2009 vintage of barley wine for only $22, which I made sure I grabbed myself one.





Down in Austin, TX, Jester King Craft Brewery had their grand opening.  (Jay did a whole blog post about it that you can check out here.)  Then on top of all of that, a few of us got together and had a fancy beer night, where only beers over $10 a bottle were allowed.  (I did sneak in a couple of my homebrews.)



We didn't quite plan it, but it seemed like the featured brewery of the night was Ommegang.  We sampled the Witte, Biere de Mars, Adoration, and Chocolate Indulgence.  I would have to say that my favorite from this section was Biere de Mars, and not only because of the magical space dust.  It was extremely well balanced and the typical farmhouse/biere de mars tartness, and since I am in the middle of reading Farmhouse Ales right now, I was even more drawn to this beer.  There is not too much else I can say, other than go out and try it.

The next prominently featured brewery was Ithaca.  From them, we sampled two from their Excelsior line, White Gold and Le Bleu.  My favorite of the two here had to have been Le Bleu.  It was quite an interesting blueberry lambic which from the tartness of the blueberries and the bacteria made it taste as everyone said "a sour patch kid."  It definitely was not something that I would be able to drink a whole bottle myself, but one that would be best shared with a few other friends as we did that night.

We sampled at least ten beers that night and it probably wasn't the best idea since we had a general idea of an order to taste them in, but after a while, your taste buds would get tired all of the flavors started blending in.  One of those beers that blended in for me was Lucifer from the Belgian brewery Het Anker.  It followed Biere de Mars that night so it did not get a fair judgement from myself because of the lingering flavors, however I had the foresight to cap it off with a champagne saver that came with our Rabbit corkscrew set and tasted it last night.  It was delicious and was extremely characteristic of a Belgian Saison, light in color with excellent head, and slightly spicy, fruity and tarty.  I can only aim to achieve something like this when I attempt to brew by first Saison this summer.



On Deck: Sarsaparilla Ale (2/6)
Primary: Irish Red Ale
Secondary: Beef on Weck Ale
Carbonating: American Pale Ale
Drinking: Rye-rish Red Ale