Tag: American Wild Ale
New Belgium Brewing Co. La Folie
Belgian lambics have fascinated me ever since I first got interested in beer. It was Belgian Trappist beers that really drew me to beer in the first place, but lambics captured my imagination in a way that no style of beer had until that point. And so when I decided to begin homebrewing, one of the first homebrew books I bought was Jeff Sparrow’s Wild Brews. After reading this through, and trying nearly all of the lambics that I could get my hands on, I found myself reaching further afield for beers in this style. Needless to say, I quickly became interested in beers from breweries such as Russian River and New Belgium.
I’ve written before about Russian River’s “wild” beers, Temptation and Supplication in particular. Early on those were beers that I went out of my way to find. But New Belgium’s La Folie was actually the first American beer in this style that I was fascinated by, curious about, and excited to try. I remember reading about how they produced it using large wooden barrels, and how the concept and recipe were introduced by Peter Bouckaert who had come over to New Belgium from Rodenbach.
Similar to how Flanders style red beers such as Rodenbach are made, La Folie is aged in large wooden barrels for several years before bottling and relies on a range of yeasts beyond the traditional saccharomyces cerevisiae do their part to lend funk and tartness to the beer. Lactabacillus yeasts play a large role here, similar to lambics. The beers typically also end up with a strong wood element from the extended aging in barrels. At bottling time, the older beer that has aged for anywhere up to three years is blended with younger years, often times 2- and 1- year old beers. Again, this is similar to lambics, gueuze in particular which is a blend of 1, 2, and 3 year old lambics.
So La Folie is essentially New Belgium’s effort to put their own spin on, the traditional Flanders red style beer from Belgium. Along with Russian River, they are definitely one of the pioneers of American wild ales, and they continue to be inventive and chart new paths. Their Lips of Faith series includes several beers that use unique yeasts and aging processes.
This 750ml bottle was a gift that I was seriously lucky to receive. And so we sat on it for a little while until the perfect opportunity to drink it arose. La Folie rolls in at a moderate 6%, which is good if it’s just you and someone else sharing the large bottle.
The beer pours brownish red with rich, cranberry highlights. The nose is a veritable fruit symphony with apricots, sour cherries, raspberries all intermingled, underscored by notes of oak. The palate is very, very tart and light-bodied with a soft texture. The combination here makes the tartness stand out all the more. Striking fruit flavors abound – cranberries, cherries, raspberries, hint of apricots again – underscored by a note of tannins and creaminess. A little more sweetness than on the nose. The finish is dominated by sour cherries, lingering on a wave of tartness and underscored by a note of vanilla.
This is right up there with the best American wild ales that I’ve drunk. It’s similar to the Russian River Supplication with its fruit character, but is more sharp and tart, and doesn’t have the wine-overtones that the RRBC beer has that add a layer of richness. Nonetheless, the flavors in La Folie are very good and consistent throughout, not tailing off or getting more sour at the finish. This is a must-try for any fans of “wild” ales – if you’re lucky enough to live somewhere they distribute to!
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Russian River Brewing Co. Supplication Batch #2
Russian River Brewing’s Supplication was one of the two beers of theirs that I picked up a few bottles of during a trip to California a couple of years back. At this point in time I was very much into lambics and had read about Russian River and the two wild ales that they had brewed up until then, Supplication and Temptation. As luck would have it, while in a shop in San Francisco I ran across a couple of bottles of each and snapped them up, excited to give them a whirl.
Russian River was one of the first American breweries to begin experimenting with yeasts such as brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus, the three “wild” yeast strains that are responsible for most of the exciting flavors that you find in Belgian lambics. Along with saccharomyces, the yeast that is used to brew most every other style of beer out there, these yeasts produce the wide range of flavors that make lambics such distinctive beers.
Russian River’s first two wild ales were (and still are) brewed using saccharomyces for primary fermentation. After primary, the beers were moved to wine barrels – Chardonnay barrels for Temptation, Pinot Noir barrels for Supplication – and inoculated with different “wild” yeasts. Temptation used just brettanomyces, whereas Supplication used brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus, along with many pounds of sour cherries. Each beer was then left to sit quietly and do its thing for 12-24 months.
Since then Russian River has released two other wild ales, Beatification which is spontaneously fermented, and Consecration, which is brewed using a process similar to Supplication. Whereas Consecration uses saccharomyces for primary, Beatification is placed directly into previously inoculated barrels where it can then ferment spontaneously.
All in all, a remarkable brewing process, and Russian River now has a couple of hundred barrels or more of wild ales aging in their new brewing facility. Having tried a number of wild ales from different producers, I still think that theirs are the best examples of this type of beer being brewed by an American brewery. While Cantillon’s beers may be the most spellbinding examples of lambics, beers such as Temptation, Supplication, and Beatification are very, very good and amazingly complex.
So, back to this bottle of Supplication! This bottle was from Batch #2, and was originally brewed in October of 2005 and bottled in January of 2007 after spending 14 months in barrels. The beer was brewed to an original gravity of 1.064, and because of the ability of these unique yeasts to ferment wort more fully than saccharomyces, the final ABV came out to 7.0% (a bit higher than for a non-wild beer of this original gravity).
After a careful pour to leave the sediment in the bottle, Supplication in the glass is reddish brown and only slightly hazy. A thin head forms on the beer, but from the bubbles rising in the glass you can see that there is plenty of effervescent carbonation. The nose has aromas of tart sour cherries, smoke, and an undercurrent of mesquite honey. The palate kicks off with a very dry, bracing tartness at first. The body is medium weight, and the texture is highlighted by the effervescent carbonation. Flavors of tart cherries and red wine dominate, accompanied by honey, malt and a hint of smokiness. As the beer warms layers of flavors, especially lactic tartness, unfold one after the other. The long finish is tart with the flavor of sour cherries.
Another great wild ale from Russian River. I enjoy Temptation a shade more, for no good reason other than personal taste. I was really surprised by the smoky element present throughout this beer, and by the very bracing tartness – this is where the sour cherries really make their contribution. I found Temptation was a bit softer on the palate, a gentler drinking beer that still contained many layers of flavor. All in all, if you have the chance to try any of Russian River’s wild ales, do not hesitate. In fact, on a recent trip out west we went to the Russian River brewery and were able to try the most recent batch of Temptation (very good) and their newest wild ale, Consecration. This is a 10% Belgian strong ale aged in previously used (for wild ales) cabernet sauvignon barrels with currants added for good measure. Very good, and very sneaky. A glass of that turned out to be a very big beer.
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Avery Brewing Co. 15th Anniversary Ale
There aren’t too many American breweries that I associate with the production of wild ales. Russian River comes to mind first, followed by Lost Abbey, and then perhaps New Belgium, Cambridge Brewing Company (overlooked since they don’t bottle, but producing a lot of very good, and very unique wild ales), and then I know of some others here and there, but nothing that stands out. So even though I’ve gone to the Night Of The Funk at the annual Belgian Beer Fest, there really are just not too many producers who stick out in my mind when I think of this style.
Needless to say, Avery Brewing was not one of them. But my curiosity was piqued when I read several references to their 15th Anniversary Ale on the Burgundian Babble Belt homebrewing forum. The BBB homebrewing board frequently has lively discussions about brewing wild ales. As you may imagine, harvesting yeast from bottles of Belgian and American wild ales is a frequent discussion topic. Typically, the American producer mentioned in these discussions is Russian River.
But this week when I was looking back through recent posts I started to see references to this beer from Avery Brewing. I’d seen it in shops, but given how little I knew about it, and – lets’ admit it – how entrenched I was in drinking IPAs, I didn’t give it too much thought. In the end, I’ve turned out to be downright lucky that bottles of this are still available now, nearly a year after it was first released (May 2008).
This beer is evidence of one of the best traits of American brewers: their penchant for experimentation and venturing into the unknown. This is a golden ale fermented entirely with a unique strain of brettanomyces isolated and selected by the brewers at Avery. During fermentation they add black mission figs, hibiscus flowers, and white pepper. So here you have two aspects that demonstrate the amazing creativity of American breweries.
Every year Avery produces an anniversary ale, but this was the first one that was a wild ales. As I mentioned already, the beer is entirely fermented with brettanomyces, and during fermentation they add black mission figs, hibiscus flowers, and white pepper to the mix. The original gravity was 1.064 and the beer comes in at 7.8%, so I’m betting that the final gravity was somewhere in the realm of 1.008 or a shade higher. It was bottled in April of 2008, and I’m just opening this bottle in March of 2009, so it’s been in the bottle for almost a year.
The appearance is crystal clear, straw colored gold. The nose has loads of funk, alongside scents of leather, meadow, and overripe, rich citrus fruits. I hate to say it, but the nose is just full of brett. The palate is effervescent with carbonation and is very dry. The spectrum of flavors ranges from floral and grassy, to grapes and star fruits. As the beer warms sweet malt flavors play more of a role. All throughout are the unique flavors of brett, hard to describe but easy to recognize.
I was very pleasantly surprised by this beer. As I mentioned in an earlier post about Russian River Brewing’s Temptation, wild beers are a real fascination of mine, and it’s always interesting the first time you try a wild beer from a brewery that is new to you. In this case, I especially liked this beer when I let it warm up a bit. Straight from the fridge the funk flavors were especially strong and the beer came across as somewhat one-dimensional. As it warmed the flavors really blossomed and opened up, and the beer took on a number of new dimensions.
Also, keep your eyes open for Avery’s new Brabant Barrel-Aged Wild Ale. This was released very recently (late February?) and is the first in Avery’s new series of barrel-aged beers. Brabant is a dark Belgian ale measuring 8.65%, fermented with two strains of brettanomyces and aged for eight months in Zinfandel barrels. Based on how good this beer was, the Brabant should be a worthwhile find.
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Russian River Brewing Co. Temptation Batch #2
The first beer styles that I got interested in were Belgian beers. But the first style of beer that I really got excited about were wild ales. I quickly became entranced by the incredibly complex flavor profiles of lambics, geuzes, and Flemish ales. This was in 2006 and 2007, a time when American brewers were only just beginning to brew this style of beer. Russian River was one of the first, and as far as I can tell remains one of the, and perhaps the, best.
The text on the label of this beer says it all, “Is it beer or is it wine?”. In truth, wild ales have trouble fitting into one category or the other. The flavors they present to beer drinkers are often shocking if not entirely unwelcome. Tart, sour, barnyard, leather, and horse are common flavors that will coexist with more typical flavors of citrus, fruit, wine, and spices, making for a yin/yang sort of style. Wild ales are easily the most complex beers being brewed today, either in America or elsewhere.
While the style heralds from the lambic brewers of Belgium, American brewers have been making notable headway with this style. Whereas Belgian brewers rely on the brewhouse’s resident yeasts to perform the magic of turning the beer into lambic, American brewers began by using yeasts either imported from Belgium or cultured from Belgian brewers by companies such as Wyeast and White Labs. Some of them, Russian River included, inoculated their beers with these yeasts and then transferred them into oak barrels, with the result that the yeasts took up residence in the barrels, enabling the brewery to begin building their own unique wild yeast strain(s).
In 2006 when I first discovered that brewers such as Russian River were brewing wild beers, I was also fortunate enough to be traveling out to California on occasion. On one of those trips, Erin and I stumbled upon a cache of RR beers, 3 bottles each of Temptation (Batch #1) and Supplication (Batch #2). I didn’t hesitate to pick some up and bring them home with us. Since then I’ve drunk a couple of each of the bottles, and managed to patiently sit on the remaining ones. Russian River doesn’t ship out here, and so since that last trip the only chance I’ve had to try any of their other beers was at last fall’s Belgian Beer Fest where they were serving the most recent bottling of Beatification.
And so it is with a touch of sadness and lots of excitement that I popped the cork on this last bottle of Temptation Batch #2. This batch was brewed on July 1, 2005 and bottled on October 12, 2006. As far as Russian River’s wild brews goes, this one was a relatively tame beginning. Two strains of Belgian ale yeasts were used. After primary fermentation the beer was aged in Chardonnay barrels and used a wine yeast and brettanomyces for bottling and conditioning.
Here is the text from the label:
“Is it beer, or is it wine? “Aged in French oak wine barrels for sixteen months with distinct characteristics of fruit and subtle oak” sounds more like a description of wine than beer. But, of course, Temptation is indeed beer. Actually, Tempation is a blonde ale, after the primary fermentation it is aged in used French oak chardonnay barrels. Flavors of wine and oak absorb into the brew throughout the sixteen months of barrel aging. During this time, a secondary fermentation occurs using a yeast strain disliked by most brewers and winemakers called Brettanomyces. The addition of ‘Brett’ gives Temptation intriguing characteristics and a pleasant sourness.”
I don’t think there’s anything I can add to that. So on to the tasting.
The beer pours a clear, golden yellow. A thin white head forms and sticks around for the duration. Ample much carbonation is apparent from the number of bubbles rising to the surface. The nose has sour apples, lemons, wheat, earthiness, and wine. Very complex, and the more time I spend with it the more I notice. The palate is rich with carbonation and has a very light texture. The flavors are dominated by a warming sourness that forms a backdrop for other flavors: poached pears, malty sweetness, grassiness, apples, lemons. As the beer warms, lush, oaky sweetness begins to play a more prominent role. The long finish begins surprisingly sweet, with a strong note of chardonnay oakiness, after which the tart fruit flavors return.
A beer this complex is just remarkable. The number of flavors that you notice the more you taste and smell it is amazing. Since brewing this beer Russian River has consolidated their spot at the forefront of American breweries creating wild beers. While other brewers brew the occasional wild beer, the only other brewery regular brewing this style would be Lost Abbey. Meanwhile, Russian River has added Consecration (a stong dark ale aged for 6 months inside used cabernet sauvignon barrels with currants added) and Beatification (a 100% spontaneously fermented beer using the oldest barrels that no longer have any wine flavor or oak flavor left in them) to a lineup of wild beers already featuring Temptation and Supplication.
My one hope is to a) before too long make it out to Santa Rosa again to visit the brewery and try more of Russian River’s amazing lineup of beers (which goes well beyond wild beers…Pliny The Elder anyone?), and b) get my hands on just a few more bottles of these remarkable beers to stow away in the basement for future tasting. Without doubt, this beer has significantly gained in complexity since I first tasted it!
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