For some people, a dark beer is any beer darker than slightly tinted water. That would include bitters, pale ales, IPAs, amber lagers, Octoberfests and a host of other beers that more knowledgeable beer drinkers don’t consider truly dark. Here’s a simple list of some better-known dark beer styles with a few commercially available examples.... View Article
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day! –John Milton (Samson Agonistes, line 80) Milton’s words could be the lager drinker’s mantra when contemplating anything other than the lightest colored brew. Fear. Dread. Horror. Apprehension.
A few issues back, I wrote about some tasty blonde ale styles. This time the assignment is two authentic American styles.
Belle-Vue Brewery Sint-Jans-Molenbeek & Brussels Production: 210,000 hectoliters Beers: Sèlection Lambic (old gueuze), Gueuze, Kriek, Kriek Primeur (first of new season’s cherries), Framboise Bell-Vue is the largest of the lambic breweries, holding a 63 percent market share of lambic in Belgium. Belle-Vue brews at a new brewery in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, just outside Brussels, ages and blends... View Article
Horse blanket. Barnyard. Old Leather. Musty. Cheesy. Cidery. Fruity. Tart. Acidic. Lactic. Dry. Put them all together and you’ve found yourself a lambic. And a damn good one, at that.
Bavaria, best known for its smooth, clean, bottom-fermented lager biers, is synonymous with great brewing tradition. Golden pilsners, Munich helles, seasonal marzen and bocks, and the indigenous brew, Munich dunkel, all call Bavaria home. But there is a family of beers that runs counter to these lagers in almost every aspect: the Bavarian wheat beers.
A blonde, a blonde, I need a blonde. Being a bit particular, not just any blonde, of course, will do.
In the previous issue, we discussed oatmeal stouts and how that style has split into three sub-styles comprising the group. This type of style splitting has become commonplace. As the beer market becomes more and more international, styles are no longer bound to their country of origin.
Breaking down the broad stout style group into its individual substyles can be a bit difficult. Think of stouts as blondes–it’s in the contrast, you see. You have Catherine Deneuve (French) blondes, Claudia Schieffer (German) blondes, Pamela Anderson (Canadian) blondes, Christine Applegate as Kelly Bundy (American) blondes, Anna Kournakova (Russian) blondes, and A. A. Gill’s... View Article
