Where the Wild Beers Are
November 1st, 2010
It’s a special kind of beer event where you hear unique heralds of praise such as “this one has a more fungus quality than last year’s batch” or “this tastes like bird poop and cat piss.” But, to some, these are desired flavors in the world’s most complex category of beers; wild/sour ales. And these were just the endearing qualities that dozens of lacto-lovers came together to celebrate this past weekend at Brooklyn’s second annual Where the Wild Beers Are, a communal gathering of spontaneously fermented beer lovers. So hold on to your tasting cups boys and girls, because what follows are some serious rare and delicious beers cultivated from some of the city’s finest private cellers.
Tags: Event, Photography, sour beer, spontaneously fermented, wild beer.Brew Review – Captain Lawrence Barrel Select Batch #1
June 29th, 2010
Style: Wild Ale, Barrel Aged Brown Ale
Brewery: Captain Lawrence (Pleasentville, NY)
ABV: 7.5%
IBUs: unknown
Availability: single brew, limited release
Summer has descended upon New York with full force at that means it’s time to feverishly drink through my winter storage of brews before the heat takes a toll on them. The result is early summer nights filled with rare brews, obscure barley-wines and delicate Saison’s that just won’t last the heat in a Brooklyn apartment without air conditioning. It’s the perfect excuse for me to snap a few new bottle photos and get back to writing reviews! First up in this series is the Captain Lawrence Barrel Select Batch #1, an aggressively sour American Brown Ale blended from a 6 barrels ranging from two to three years old.
Tags: brown ale, Captain Lawrence, sour beer, wild ale.Spontanious Fermentation: Allagash's new Koelschip
December 16th, 2009
Always pushing the limits of Belgian inspired American beers, Portland, Maine’s Allagash brewery have developed their very own Koelschip for creating spontaneously fermented beers similar to the lambic style. While sour beers utilizing wild yeasts such as Brettanomyces have been popping up all over, all of the American versions of these are brewed using cultivated yeast strains. That is, until now.
The new Koelschip – aka a very large open air room with a steel tank and wooden ceiling (see photo above) – will change all that. For a few months out of the year, the weather by the Allagash brewery will be just right for cultivating “good” wild bacteria which accumulate on the ceiling and then fall into the beer tank. The beer is then pumped back indoors for fermenting and later aged in barrels.
Check out the awesome video below and keep an eye out for the first batch (no release date announced). In the interim, grab a glass of Allagash’s amazing Interlude which is a sour Belgian that was “accidentally” infected with local yeast and started this whole adventure. More photo’s here.
UPDATE: Beernews.org reports that this beer will make its wordwide debut tomorrow, December 16th in Philadelphia:
So when does the beer make its U.S. debut? Tomorrow night according to Felicia D’Ambrosio of the Philadelphia City Paper: “Rob Tod, owner of Allagash Brewing in Portland, Maine, will visit Philadelphia to make the U.S. debut of the first-ever American spontaneously fermented lambic in a Tria Fermentation School class on Thursday, Dec. 17. Hyped lambic-heads have already sold the class out, a testament to Philadelphia’s devotion to the rarest and weirdest of all artisanal beer styles.”
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