Microbrewed Adventures - Charles Papazian [31]
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…you are doing the right thing by bringing some flavorful beer to life.
On fizzy yellow beer:
…if a can of carbonated emptiness falls in the trash and no one hears it, is it a waste?
Apples in a Big Beer
New Glarus Brewing Company
IN A REMOTE STRETCH of southern Wisconsin, a half hour southwest of Madison, lies the small community of New Glarus. As we left the vibrant, beer-savvy college town and approached our destination, it seemed that we had been transported to the rolling foothills of the Swiss Alps: green pastures, forests, cows, farmland and a brewery.
I’ve known Dan and Deb Carey for many years. Dan, a German brewing university graduate, first found brewery work in the early 1980s at one of America’s first microbreweries, the Montana Beverage Company, a revival of Montana’s old Kessler brewery. In a rustic setting and with limited access to modern equipment and technology, Dan was able to brew the most exquisite German-style bock, pale and Oktoberfest lagers. There were no other breweries in America, large or micro, that were making lager beer of this quality. But the reality of the situation emerged by the late 1980s. Most Montanans were disinterested in quality and diversity in their beers. There were no other microbreweries within hundreds of miles. Helena was briefly an oasis in the high plains, eventually going dry for lack of local beer enthusiasm. Sadly, I never had the opportunity to visit Helena in its microbrewery heyday.
Dan worked awhile with Anheuser-Busch and eventually managed to start a family-owned brewery with wife, Deb. I tasted their award-winning beers at the Great American Beer Festival and assured myself I was not going to let my beer life slip by without a visit to Dan and Deb Carey’s New Glarus Brewing Company.
It was blustery and snowing lightly when Sandra and I arrived in April 2002. I felt as though I had made a pilgrimage to a brewery destined to become a model of success—a microbrewery whose success was solidly founded on the quality and diversity of its ales and lagers.
Though Dan has a German brewmaster’s education, this doesn’t limit him to traditional German beer styles. In fact, besides very traditional German beers such as Uff Da Bock and Edel Pils, at New Glarus you’ll find beers like Belgian-inspired Raspberry Tart and Wisconsin Belgian Red (cherry).
Deb and Dan Carey, New Glarus Brewing Company
The small countryside brewery takes care to use local ingredients whenever they can; local cherries, barley malt, wheat, corn and honey are but a few ingredients used to make their expertly brewed ales and lagers. Speaking of ales, cask-conditioned Spotted Cow Ale and playfully inspired Fat Squirrel Nut Brown Ale are but a couple.
“Drink indigenous” is a theme of New Glarus Brewing Company. Fat Squirrel is explained on their website:
One deceptively spring like winter day, Brewmaster Dan walked home from the brewery, sat down to dinner and said, “Boy, there are some fat squirrels out there. They’re running all over the place. I think I should brew a Fat Squirrel Nut Brown Ale.” Deb agreed and so another beer legend was born.
One hundred percent Wisconsin malt of six different varieties impart the natural toasted color to the bottle-conditioned unfiltered ale. Clean hazelnut notes result from these carefully chosen barley malts. Hops from Slovenia, Bavaria and the Pacific Northwest give Fat Squirrel its backbone.
I could make New Glarus’s pils, bock or spotted cow a regular habit, but while I was at the brewery I wanted to ask about the beers that I would make a special habit. In particular I have always flipped out over Wisconsin Belgian Red, Raspberry Tart and an apple beer no longer brewed. They are all refreshingly fruity and tart, and the intensity of the cherries, raspberry or apple is as true as fresh fruit. How did they do it?
I’ve made