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Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/422286
www.cheersonline.com 43 November / December 2014 • SWEET ON SOUR BEERS For a blended beer that's lower in alcohol, brewers often make sour beer using blends of different component beers that have been exposed to wild yeast such as Brettanomyces and/or "bugs," as bacteria like Lactobacillus and Pediococcus are called. Gueuze, which is an old style of beer originating from the Senne river valley in Belgium, mixes young and old sour lambics to create complex but balanced fl avors and aromas. The benchmark example of this style comes from the Brasserie Cantillon in Brussels. Their traditional gueuze is extremely carbonated, with dynamic aromatics and intense puckering power. It is also rare, so any bar that offers this beer will sell it at a premium. At The Hopleaf in Chicago, for instance, 375-ml. bottles of Cantillon Gueuze typically sell for $18 when available. Bottles come in 375-ml. and 750-ml. bottle formats. For a more widely available but equally traditional imported gueuze lambic, try Lindeman's Gueuze Cuvee Rene. The large-format bottle is a great choice for a special occasion—think a beer substitute for Champagne—dry and not offensively sour or funky. At renown beer bar Church Key in Washington, D.C., a 12-oz. bottle of Cuvee Rene sells for $15 and is served in a tumbler. The Church Key sells another traditional Belgian gueuze, Hannsens Oud Gueuze, in a large-format 750-ml. bottle for $42. Domestic examples of this style are hard to come by, however. If you fi nd a bottle of Lost Abbey Duck Duck Gueuze or New Glarus R&D Gueuze, you have struck gold. Visit the Avenue Pub in New Orleans for an amazing selection of sour and barrel-aged beers at reasonable prices. Look for The Bruery's Rueuze, a blend of sour blondes aged in oak barrels; you can share a 24-oz. bottle for $30. WINE AND BEER BLENDS If it's innovation you're looking for, one of the biggest trends in blended beer is in merging beer and wine together. Dogfi sh Head Brewing Co. of Milton, DE, produces Midas Touch year-round. The fi rst in their Ancient Ales series, it combines honey, white muscat grapes and saffron to yield an evocative fi nish. These boundary-pushing beers are also being made in collaboration. Alex Davis is a Certifi ed Cicerone and the general manager of Library Ale House in Santa Monica. Davis carefully curates a beer menu that offers reduced Happy Hour prices in the afternoon, and a full lineup of Southern California brew. "One of our local breweries, Smog City Brewing Co. (Torrance, CA), just teamed up for the second year with 21st Amendment Brewery (San Francisco, CA) to make California Love, an Imperial Red brewed with pinot noir grapes," Davis says. "Smog City also makes a Grape Ape IPA with different grape varietals in every seasonal batch." Blending beer with spirits is also on the rise, as more operators and guests warm to the idea of beer cocktails. Uncommon Ground mixes a blended beer into a seasonal favorite cocktail, Cathcart says. "We serve a Dragons Milk Manhattan all winter long," which is a mixture of vanilla- infused Four Roses, sweet vermouth and house-made cherry-vanilla bitters, shaken and strained with a Dragons Milk fl oat." TIPS FOR MARKETING BLENDS Because of the time and care involved in blending, pricing these rare beers can be a challenge. "If something is good but expensive, I can always reduce the pour size to get down to a price that I feel comfortable charging," says Davis at Library Alehouse. "I hate going over $9, as it seems like an un-beery thing to do." Davis says he generally uses a 12- oz. snifter, which allows for a 10-oz. pour with head, for strong barrel-aged beers and sour beers. With sour beers, he notes, bars and restaurants often want "to get more servings out of a particularly desirable keg so more guests can enjoy it." Anything from Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, CA, for example, tends to be popular, Davis says. The brewer makes a Blonde Ale aged in used chardonnay barrels from local Sonoma County wineries. But it's not just cost and quantity that infl uence pour size. "For high ABV beers, limiting serving size has as much to do with responsibility as it does with price. I do everything I can to avoid over- serving," Davis says, noting that some of blended beers are as strong as wine. At Uncommon Ground, fl ights allow consumers to comfortably experiment: "The appeal to the consumer is a change, I think. Get away from hops. Get away from your standard pilsner. And trying something unique," says Cathcart. "Sour beers and barrel-aged beers always show up in fl ight orders, since it's a good way to branch out with one 4-oz. taster instead of committing to the full pour," he adds. Erika Bolden is a freelance writer and Certifi ed Beer Server. She is a frequent contributor to L.A. Weekly, West Coaster SoCal and All About Beer magazine. Using oak barrels to age beer, whether they are fresh from the cooper or previously host to wine or spirits, produces fl avor complexity and depth. Every barrel is different and the barrel- aging process will impart slightly different results from one vessel to the next. In order to compensate for these disparities the blender/brewer will combine contents from many barrels until the desired result is reached. Wood is porous, allowing small amounts of oxygen to permeate its walls. This "breathing," along with intricate texture, is an ideal habitat for the bacteria and wild yeast that make sour beer sour. The oxidation creates sherry and port-like fl avors in barrel-aged beer. Actual chemicals in the wood dissolve into the barrel's contents, imparting oaky fl avors into the brew.—EB IT'S ALL IN THE BARREL