The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [132]
PHILOSOPHY
White Birch is no-frills but innovative, a classic successful craft brewer combination. It’s not that he lacks ideas, he has said, it’s that he suffers for a shortage of time and fermenter space—the two most expensive ingredients in brewing.
KEY BEER
Look for the Hooksett Belgian IPA, an intense, spicy, hop-suffused bomb of a beer at 9.5% ABV.
Best of the Rest: New Hampshire
WOODSTOCK STATION INN & BREWERY
135 Main St. • North Woodstock, NH 03262 (800) 321-3985 • woodstockinnnh.com
The Woodstock Station Inn opened its little copper, wood, and brick-clad seven-barrel brewery in 1996 and soon began booking guests deeply interested in the process of brewing itself. Offered in April and May for $125 (not including room cost), Brewery Weekend guests enjoy a reception Friday night and beer dinner Saturday, breakfast each morning and lunch on Saturday, and the chance to try out some aspects of the process during hands-on sessions in the brew house.
Maine
Portland
ALLAGASH
50 Industrial Wy. • Portland, ME 04103 (800) 330-5385 • allagash.com • Established: 1994
SCENE & STORY
Rob Tod’s Allagash Brewery helped usher in the American craze for Belgian brewing styles with its first of many insanely drinkable beers, Allagash White, a traditional 5% ABV wit containing wheat (in place of barley), coriander, and other spices, and curaçao orange peel. Since then, Tod, along with brewmaster Jason Perkins, have created an array of new standards and superb bottle-conditioned beers. It’s not much to look at on the outside, but the beer is extraordinary in every way, and has influenced and inspired countless young American brewers.
PHILOSOPHY
Of all the American craft breweries inspired by Belgium’s unorthodox brewing practices, Allagash has made some of the boldest leaps, utilizing herbs, spices, and starchy vegetables usually only eaten on Thanksgiving. Some are wood aged and then bottle conditioned, meaning the beers have rested quietly in oak barrels before bottling with some yeast and a small measure of special brewing sugar to carbonate in the bottle. Inspired by Belgian classics but going in new directions too, these beers boast wine-like complexity and higher alcohol levels, pushing the limits of what’s considered sane and desirable in American microbrewing. Incredibly time-consuming and expensive to produce, barrel-aged beers expand the sensory horizon of beer almost exponentially, and Allagash has been at the forefront of this practice, inspiring countless imitators.
KEY BEER
Part of the (not barrel-aged) Serie de Origine experimental series, Confluence (7.5% ABV) combines the house Belgian yeast strain with brettanomyces, two kinds of traditional English hops, and a transatlantic medley of grains (including German-style Pilsner malts) for a totally deracinated, fully delicious evening sipper. This is a beer that shouldn’t work—it sounds like the recipe came from a few rolls of some cloak-wearing home brewer’s twelve-sided dice—but does. It’s tart and wine-like on the front end, warm and creamy on the back end, and delicious throughout.
THE COOL SHIP REVOLUTION AND THE SLOW BURN OF AMERICAN WILD ALES
For some craft brewers innovation means slowing down—way down. Instead of finding ways to get more people to buy their beer faster, they’re aging ales for months or even years with monkish consideration. You’ve heard of Slow Food? This is Slow Brewed.
In 2008, following Founder and Brewmaster Rob Tod’s trip to Belgium and tours of several artisanal operations, Allagash installed what is thought to be the first modern koelschip, or “cool ship” in the United States. A shallow-bottomed steel vessel used to cool a rich wheat-, barley-, and aged-hops-infused wort (unfermented beer), expose it to the outside air, and kick off a spontaneous wild yeast fermentation, cool ships are still used in a handful