Lambic

Lambic (style beer)
(5 gallons)
5/10/2008

9.0 lbs Belgian Pilsner
6.0 lbs torrified wheat
? SRM

4 oz Crystal (180 min)
(whole leaf hops, baked in oven @ 200 for about 2 hours)
? IBU

Yeast: WLP655 Belgian Sour Mix

Step mash:
Protien rest 30 min @ 130
Sacc rest 30 min @ 150
Mash out 10 min @ 165

180 minute boil

1.080 OG on 5/10/08
1.008 FG on 3/26/09

Went for a more traditional grain bill and mash than my prior lambic. The 1.080 was higher than I was shooting for.

Westvleteren

We visited the Westvleteren monastery - or at least the adjacent bar - in summer 2007, and we picked up a few bottles, at a very reasonable price, in Bruges, which we finally broke into in May 2008. The beers are widely reputed as being among the world's finest, although we do sometimes wonder if that's as much because they are hard to get as anything else.

We started with the Westvleteren Blond (5.8% abv), which is the beer that the monks themselves are apt to drink. It has a wonderfully intense aroma, with hints of honey, and there's a faint hint of honey in the taste, too. It's a complex beer, crisply carbonated with a large number of bubbles on the tongue. There were some disagreements as to whether it was sweet or dry, and while we agreed that it had some herbal/spicy qualities, some chose coriander and others cardamom as the dominant flavour. 

We moved on to the Westvleteren 8 (8% abv) next. Again, the beer is intensely carbonated, and there was no disagreement this time that it was a much drier beer. The most prominent flavour was that of raisins, although there's no mistaking that this is a beer. Given the jump up in alcohol content, it was surprisingly light, even refreshing, in taste. 

We concluded with Westvleteren 12 (10.2% abv),which has an exceptionally intense flavour, more obviously alcoholic even on the tongue. The beer had strong hints of sherry and port and fruit flavours. It was much sweeter than the other two brews, and tasted like a real after-dinner beer rather than a beer to drink with food. It wasn't as carbonated as its less alcoholic siblings.

After much mulling and swirling and glass exchanging, the consensus favourite was the Westvleteren 8: the final few sips from that bottle were in notably high demand.

Saison Noire

Saison Noire
(5 gallons)
5/4/2008

10.0 lbs Belgian Pilsner
0.5 lbs CaraFa II
1 t gypsum
20.8 SRM

2 oz Liberty (60 min)
1 oz Willamette (15 min)
0.5 oz Willamette (2 min)
46.2 IBU

Yeast: WLP570 Belgian Golden with starter

Infusion mash 150 degrees for 90 minutes

1.055 OG on 5/4
1.015 secondary on 5/10
1.008 keg on 6/9

Raftman

Rating: 2

Unibroue

Chambly, Quebec, Canada
Style:
ABV: 5.5%
341 ml bottle

One of the beers we brought back from the great Gaspe road trip of 2008, though I think you can get this in the states. Orange color with plenty of tiny bubbles. Lighter in alchohol and body than many other Unibroue beers that I've had. Light smokey taste, but I'd have a hard time saying this is whiskey inspired.

Very drinkable for a Unibroue, but still has that distinct taste.

Dunkelweizen v2

Dunkelweizen v2
(5 gallon)

1/4 lb 2-row malt, toasted in pan
1/2 lb chocolate malt
7 lb dry wheat malt extract

3/4 oz Crystal 3.8% (60m min)
1/4 oz Saaz 3.2% (10 min)

WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale Yeast

60 min boil

Pitched 4/5/08, SG 1.060
Secondary 4/16/08, SG 1.022

Tasted pretty darn good when I drank the sample used to determine the specific gravity when I was moving the beer to the secondary!

Sixpoint Craft Ales

Sixpoint Craft Ales are a pretty new brewery located in Brooklyn, with their first beers rolling off the production line in 2005. They shipped some beers to Massachusetts but for production reasons they apparently weren't able to keep up with demand, and we caught the beers on their comeback launch tour.

Shane Welch, the brewmaster/co-head honcho, was at Cambridge Common when we visited to try out the five different Six Point beers they had on tap. It's always fun to try so many beers from one brewery, to get a sense of what they are about. We especially liked their Bengali Tiger IPA (it's nice to get an IPA that isn't just hops), and their Sweet Action, an American Blonde style, with hints of honey. They have a wide variety of other styles, too, and Shane seemed to imply that they would continue to produce an unusually large number of different beers compared to other craft brewers.

It was fun to get to chat to the brewmaster for the beers we were drinking. He was eager to share his enthusiasm for beer, giving us an account of his beer background and his plans for the future, as well as the intrigue of the craft brewing industry! He got his start as a brewer while in college, getting into homebrew in a big way, and hosting big parties at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. That was only his first step, though, and he dropped out and pursued his own beer education and eventually landed up in Brooklyn with the keys to his own place. It sounds as though they are in the midst of a big expansion and we're hoping that their beers will be more reliably available in Massachusetts henceforth.

Deep Ellum

When nearby Deep Ellum appeared on a Beer Advocate list of the best bars in the US, we figured we had to find out what the fuss was about. That said, we're a little wary of the Beer Advocate lists, which sometimes throw up such unpredictable places we wonder if some loyal drinkers have acquired carpal tunnel syndrome in trying to ensure their favourite place comes out top. The top choice in 2006, the Moan and Dove, doesn't even appear on the 2008 list!

However, wariness proved to be unnecessary, for Deep Ellum is a genuinely enjoyable spot, with a short but very solid food menu, and a really excellent selection of drafts. It's always fun to get to a new place and discover a couple of rounds' worth of unfamiliar beers, even more so when the staff are so friendly and helpful. We were impressed by the staff's beer knowledge and enthusiasm, and their quick responses to questions about the seasonal botles that were in stock. They usually have around 20 beers on tap, with a nice range available (we still remember the otherwise excellent beer bar that had at least a dozen hop monsters on tap one evening, and virtually nothing else!). The bottle menu is pretty solid, too, especially when it comes to Belgian selections: you certainly don't see Brugse Zot, Bink, or De Dolle Brouwers everywhere, even in specialist bars.

The food is generally very good, too. The cheese plates are a great way to start, and generally have unusual accompaniments.