“It takes a lot of cash and even more faith to invest in regenerating a brewery that requires … huge, hand-crafted constructions in oak.” “The eventual fate of oak-aged ales is one of the pivotal issues to the future of Belgium beer,” Webb says. So now there’s a bit of a revival in Belgium, and as most of us know, barrel-aged beers here are a big and growing moving movement. Just like Champagne, fermentation continues slowly in the bottle, and the older your sample, the drier it will be. Petrus Aged Pale’s bottled with a bit of fresh yeast. The taste is lightly malty, a faint sweetness and a lingering sour edge that intensifies in the tart finish. The nose is sour: eau de barnyard - hay, straw and, er, animals, just a whiff short of a mild vinegar. What you get in the bottle is a pale barley-malt beer, aged two years in large oak casks first used for white wine and Calvados, the French apple brandy.Īged Pale’s a deep golden brown color with a skiff of foam. Global Beer Network, the importer, says it’s not blended. It’s a 7.3 percent ale, made by Bavik, a large, family-owned brewery. I chose a bottle of Petrus Aged Pale (HHHH). Trappist proprietors Chuck Stilphen and Aaron Porter have an excellent selection of these increasingly rare brown ales from Flanders - the provinces between Antwerp and the North Sea. They were a traditional drink in the Lowlands from the Middle Ages until the Industrial Revolution died in a wave of Coca-Cola and fizzy hog-wallow lagers. These are beers steeped in history: ales long-aged in ancient oak barrels, sometimes served straight - dry and mouth-puckeringly sour, more often blended with fresh, young beer for a tantalizing sweet-sour taste. When I finally made it to the bar in this long, narrow, very Belgian-looking pub, I realized that - in a nod to a blue-collar beer-drinking tradition that’s rapidly dying, even in Belgium - I had to order a sour beer. There wasn’t even elbow room the other night at the opening of the Trappist Belgian & Specialty Beer Bar in downtown Oakland.
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