Microbrewed Adventures - Charles Papazian [83]
It is true that the final product is so sweet that it bears very little resemblance to a true lambic. Its base is a true brewed lambic blended with juice and sweeteners to suit what they perceive as consumer preference. But a tour of the brewery reveals secrets that very few care to explore because of its mega-brewery and sugared reputation.
Inside there are over 11,000 large wooden oak barrels fermenting and aging the real thing! I learned that Belle Vue’s lambics are aged for years in these barrels. The small bungholes in the barrel remain open for years, during which fermentation foams out and over the barrel.
For the making of Kriek (Belgian cherry) lambic, ripe, whole cherries are harvested in July and added to six-month-fermented lambic. Fermentation resumes with the addition of natural sugar from the cherries and continues for an additional two to two and a half years. It is easy to tell which barrels have fermenting Kriek inside. There are a handful of birchwood twigs stuffed in and partially emerging from each oak barrel. Why? So that the pits don’t emerge and clog the hole during the second fermentation, thus avoiding the danger of building pressure and exploding barrels. Eighty kilograms (about 175 pounds) of cherries are added to each 520-liter (about 550 gallons) oak barrel. That is a lot of cherries, and most of the production staff is busy stuffing cherries into bungholes during the two short weeks when the fruit is received at the brewery.
During the maturation process a moldlike skin from wild yeast forms a layer on the surface of the beer, inhibiting oxidation and evaporation. The entire process is natural, from the spontaneous fermentation begun by airborne yeast and bacteria. Spiders abound in the brewery. These are the sacred creatures of every lambic brewery; their webs capture bacteria-laden flies.
After a tour of the main cellars housing the oak barrels, we were led to a smaller cellar tucked away in a quiet corner of the brewery. There, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Hundreds of champagne-type bottles were resting on their side, aging and refermenting lambic. What a comforting sight! I was treated to a bottle. This select aged lambic was exquisite and a real treat, but is rarely available. Most fascinating was an explanation of how to translate the sediment inside the bottle. Brewer Jacque De Keersmaecker explained how to “read” the sediment as he lifted a bottle lying on its side, carefully so as not to disturb the sediment. As the light silhouetted the sediment we could see that it had spread itself into a pattern, clinging to the side of the bottle. Jacque explained that there are two types of sediment along the side of the bottle. The dark, dense and somewhat oval-patterned sediment is bacterial; the featherlike sediment that extends up and down from the bacterial center is Brettanomyces yeast. The yeast sediment is actually formed in very thin, featherlike strands. You can tell how acidic the beer will be by how large the bacterial sediment is, and how influenced by Brettanomyces yeast the lambic will be by the extending patterns of featherlike fronds of sediment.
You can go to the brewery for a tour any time. In 1995 you could also bring your own container and fill it up directly from their unblended barrels—a little-known treat.
Three Breweries in a Day
THE 500,000-HECTOLITER PALM BREWERY is a small brewery by some standards, but to taste their beers is to taste the soul of Belgian beer passion. On a tour, the owner took a few of us to the side and showed us the dried whole hops used in one of their special dry-hopped beers. We were told that there is a crew of people who individually tear apart each hop cone by hand before adding it to the aging tanks. I had my doubts until he confided to us how wonderful American homebrewers are: “I have to thank the homebrew club in Los Angeles. I believe they are called the Maltose Falcons. They advised me to use