All About Beer Demo Virtual test : Page 32
There are some things you can’t put in a bottle… WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT, I’M REALLY A DRAFT GUY. I like being at the spot when a rare beer is available by the glass: pour, pffft, it’s gone. Though I will take the occasional growler if it’s allowed! In which case, it’s worth making the trip to Selin’s Grove Brewing in Selinsgrove, PA, for their Kriek. It’s stupidly good and rich with tart fruit, and that’s the only place you can get it. —Lew Bryson I KNOW that Akkurat has a keg of Eylenbosch Kriek from the original brewery (closed 1989?). They opened one a few years ago and it was heavenly. If they open the other one I will be on the plane to Stockholm in a second! —OlaNilbrink ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE BEERS for us is Ayinger Keller Beer (cellar beer,) a beer that you can only get at Brauerei Gasthof Aying in Bavaria. It is a delicious, unfiltered lager and as I write about it, I can almost smell the yeast and taste the fresh delicious malt. The beer has the aroma of the brewery and that is a beautiful thing! —Charles Finkel ANOTHER CATEGORY would be brewpub offerings that are not bottled; say, bourbon barrel stuff from Iron Hill or lambic from The BrewWorks or Berliner weisse from Nodding Head. They’re rare, but only because they’re not bottled.Usually you can find them if you actually go visit. —Don Russell SPEZIAL RAUCHBIER AT THE BREWERY PUB IN BAMBURG: It’s a smoked malt beer that is at its absolute best vom fass at the brewery and loses a hard-to-place but undeniable something when bottled and shipped, even as far as down the road. —Stephen Beaumont A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, a group of us visited the brewery at the Abbay Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy (Rochefort). In the tasting room afterwards, brewmaster Gumar Santos offered us a choice of the beers at different ages. What was remarkable was how different the younger versions of the beers tasted, with hop aroma and flavor being much more forward. We were each able to select one bottle to take home, and without exception we all chose younger, hop-accented versions of the beers. My bottle of Rochefort 8 made it back tomy hotel room, where it was promptly consumed. I don’t think any of the other bottles made it back to the U.S. —Steve Hamburg THE FIRST TIME I HAD REAL KELLERBIER was at St. Georgen Brau in Butten-heim, Germany, just south of Bamberg. It’s a lightly carbonated, cloudy, unfiltered well-hopped lager. Gorgeous, full-flavored beer served in a gray-and-blue stein that’s wide at the base and narrow at the top. Un-fortunately, the bottled version available here in the States is simply not the same as the beer right from the St. Georgen bierstube. Buttenheim, by the way, has another claim to fame, besides the St. Georgen brewery: it’s the childhood home of iconic American blue jeans namesake Levi Strauss.He left Buttenheim for New York City when he was 18 years old. The other great kellerbier that I love somuch is made by Mahr’s Brau in Bamberg. —Kerry Byrne IT HAS BECOME HARDER AND HARDER OVER THE YEARS to carrymuch of anything on the plane, and most of my attention is usually focused on how to get rare cheeses past the agricultural inspectors. Besides, a good part of beer exploration is enjoying the beer in the context of its surroundings. One commonly told story is how different and wonderful Pilsner Urquell is in the cellars of the brewery than from an imported bottle. —Matt Stinchfield 32 ALL ABOUT BEER VOL. 31, NO.4 SEPTEMBER 2010 an Iron Age museum a few kilometers from the brewery. (MS) ALSO SUGGESTED: Bière de Beloeil, Avec les Bons Voeux Duvel,Duvel Moortgat Brewery (Breendonk-Puurs, Belgium): Famous golden ale, triple fermented, famous for its Poire William aroma and palate. (RP) Jenlain Ambrée Farmhouse Ale, Brasserie Duyck (Jenlain, France): Contains three types of French malt and hops, and three varieties of hops grown in Alsace. Unpasteurized so it has an amazing complexity of flavor and aroma, which includes a bit of horse stable and a warm earthiness—the first beer to be bottled in 75 cl bottles with a cork and a wire cage. (LV) Gratitude Barleywine,East End Brewing Co. (Pittsburgh, PA): I do like brewery-only stuff because it’s a nice reward for making the effort of coming out. (LB) Jasmine IPA, Elysian Brewing Co. (Seattle, WA): This is a fantastic aromatic ale, made with jasmine flowers, to pair with grilled seafood. (LS) Faust Pils,Brauhaus Faust (Miltenberg, Germany) Ferdinand Czech Pilsner, Pivovar Ferdinand (Benešov, Czech Republic) Firestone Walker 10, 11,Firestone Walker Brewing Co. (Paso Robles, CA) 1999 Poseidon’s Imperial Stout, Fish Brewing Co. (Olympia, WA): Barrel aged and still wonderfully complex, but also very rare. (AM) ALSO SUGGESTED: Leviathan Barleywine, Posei-don Imperial Stout Sexual Chocolate,Foothills Brewing Co. (Winston-Salem, NC): This massive, cocoa-infused imperial stout sees an annual release in early February. Huge and complex with layers of dark malts, black coffee, caramel, molasses and over-ripe cherries, this jet-black, viscous brew pairs really well with raspberry cheesecake. (OO) 5 vor 12, Forstner Biere (Kalsdorf bei Graz, Austria): Maybe the most daring brewery in Austria. While all their specialties earn high praises in many publications, Gerhard Forstner’s brewery is far too small to do any significant shipping of their beers. There are only 400 bottles of each brew of 5 vor 12, and Gerhard only brews one batch per year. (CS1) ALSO SUGGESTED: Brewsecco Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, Founders Brewing Co. (Grand Rapids, MI): A stout with both chocolate and vanilla flavors that spends a year inside a bourbon barrel. To get your hands on bottles of KBS, you’ll have to show up at the release party in mid-March. (PR/MN) Old Boardhead (1998, 2001),Full Sail Brewing Co. (Hood River, OR)
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