Microbrewed Adventures - Charles Papazian [84]
On the second brewery tour of the day, the brewery Moortgat (brewer of Duvel and other beers) was explained. Interestingly, this tour was indicative of many of the other brewery tours I and several other brewers experienced while in Belgium. There were few, if any, secrets kept from us. The breweries even handed out flow charts explaining every detail of ingredients, processes and equipment for each of their brews. American brewers, small or otherwise, rarely go into as much detail as the Belgians. I supposed they really didn’t feel they had anything to hide. It would be virtually impossible to duplicate their beer with another system and even if you could, you would still be missing the 100-plus years of beer tradition and experience.
Roger Musche tapping gueuze lambic at Lindeman Brewery
In the evening I was part of a private tour of the Lindeman Brewery, brewers of spontaneously fermented lambic beers that are widely exported to America. My first impression: What a funked-out, totally bizarre brewery! Words cannot describe the funkiness of this farmhouse brewery just outside of Brussels. Roger Musche, whom I had met in Zimbabwe while enjoying my sorghum beer indulgence, was the head brewer. He greeted us with the compassion of a brewery father and excitedly led us through the inner depths of the brewery. The fermenting rooms smelled like an old urinal and had the ambience of an ancient water closet. As we sampled various batches of lambic from tanks and barrels, Roger tossed leftover beer onto the walls and floor to add to and feed the existing micro flora of bacteria and wild yeasts, so important to the brewery’s success.
Tours uncompromisingly lead to the tasting room. We sat comfortably at wooden tables, the walls decorated with labels and posters outlining the history of the brewery. We tried their kriek (cherry), peche (peach), framboise (raspberry) and sweetened faro lambics. But it was unanimous among the invited that the best beers were the refermented gueuze lambic, no longer sold, and their cassis lambic, which was a failure in the marketplace. The most interesting “beer” was called “Tea Beer,” actually a blend of sour fermented lambic and green tea.
When you have the opportunity to reciprocate beer for beer, it is a common courtesy to do so. Rarely have I had the opportunity to share my beers with brewers in other parts of the world. But having anticipated this tour for nearly a year, I had brought along my own homebrewed “lambic-style” cherry and raspberry lambics. Unfortunately, they did not hold up to the two weeks of traveling I had just undergone. Through agitation and less-than-ideal conditions they had lost their edge, crispness and complexity. I was not offended by their less-than-accepting reception. But my 10-year-old Gnarly Roots Lambic-style barley wine was greeted with enthusiasm. I noted with interest that usually this 10 percent alcohol barley wine tasted very strong, but on this occasion, and after tasting 8 and 9 percent Belgian-style ales with regularity for the past two weeks, it did not. I suppose that proves the theory of relativity, doesn’t it?
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BELGIAN-STYLE CHERRY-BLACK CURRANT (KRIEK-CASSIS) LAMBIC
This is one of the most phenomenal lambic-style beers I’ve tasted—and I made it! I used a combination of sour cherries and chokecherries, but you have the option to use currants if you wish. This beer is a two-year process, but well worth the effort. You’ll need a quiet corner to age the slowly fermenting and evolving beer. Avoid extreme temperatures. Use the best-quality fully ripened fruit you can buy or pick yourself. Cherries and currants should have a balance between sweet and sour. Fresh or fresh-frozen are best. Here is the recipe for my finest lambic. It can be found in About the Recipes.
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CHAPTER 10
Cerveza Real in Latin America
A LAND OF THIRST, Latin America has some of the lightest-tasting beers on the planet. The beer landscape from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego can be