Lindemans Framboise

Beer in America has long been considered to be the domain of guys, while girls stick to wine. This trend is most unfortunate, and I’ve been happily watching it reverse over the past several years. I’ve personally been able to introduce a number of girls to good beer, and in general have seen the popularity of fruity witbeers increase. Witbeers, however, are not the only beers that I’ve found to appeal to non-beer drinkers; many people, especially girls who typically prefer wine, like blended lambics.

Lambics are style of beer from Brussels, Belgium and the nearby Pajottenland region. These beers are neither a traditional ale nor lager made using cultured yeast, but belong to a third class; spontaneously fermented beers. These beers are fermented using natural yeasts and bacteria which blow into the open fermenters, yielding a sour beer with a unique taste to each batch. These beers can be consumed straight, blended and carbonated (called a Gueze) or blended with fruit. One of the other reasons non-beer people tend to like this style is that it lacks the characteristic bitterness of many lager styles. While substantial amounts of hops are added to the beer, they are generally aged first to remove much of their bitter oils. This aging process prevents the beer from becoming overly bitter while maintaining the antimicrobial properties of the hops, but tends to lend a cheesy character instead.

Framboise is a name for beer that has been brewed using raspberries, which can be done in several ways. The traditional way to do so it to add whole raspberries to the wort as it ferments, later straining out the remains of the fruit before bottling. Many modern breweries instead purchase raspberry purée, or even simply raspberry juice, which is mixed with the wort instead of the whole fruit. Blended lambicus, however, are fully fermented before being mixed with the fruit juice. After bottling, the juices provide the sugars needed to carbonate the bottles, as well as providing flavor.

Lindemans Brewery is a family owned brewery in Vlezenbeek, Belgium. The brewery opened in 1811 under Frans Lindemans. The business was successful enough that in 1930 the adjoining family farm was shut down, and continued to expand their offerings and distribution throughout the 20^th century; Lindemans was also the first brewery to import lambic into the United States, starting in 1979. The brewery was expanded to meet demand in 2003 and again in 2007.

Lindemans Framboise poured a clear, deep red so dark that it was almost opaque. A single finger of pillowy, dark pink head formed, but was interspersed by some quite coarse bubbles as well. The head settled out quite quickly, but as the beer was consumed it still left the characteristic Belgian lacing on the glass. The aroma consisted overwhelmingly of sour raspberries, with some restrained malt notes present as well, but no hop aroma was evident. The initial impression of the taste is quite tart and sour, but this was quickly balanced out by sweetness, all of which were buried under a raspberry character. The finish was also fairly tart. The mouthfeel was quite fizzy, almost like soda, coupled with a moderately thin mouthfeel.

Overall, while have some sour character and being fairly tart, this was a very well balanced beer. I highly recommend this for anyone who doesn’t think they like beer, as I have found very few people who dislike this particular beer.

Price: $7.50

Size: 12 oz

ABV:4%

Appearance: 4.5 /5

Aroma: 4/5

Flavor: 4.5/5

Mouthfeel: 4/5

Dogfish Head World Wide Stout

The American Craftbrew scene has become quite crowded over the last decade or so, to the point where I despair of being able to visit every brewpub in the state. Some of these breweries, such as Troegs and Victory, have become quite well known for having very consistent, very good beer with a good distribution, and there are many other of these regional breweries spread across the country. Then there are a couple of craft breweries such as Russian River that have become known across the nation; Russian River and head brewer Vinnie Cilurzo gained notoriety for creating the double IPA style as well as brewing a large number of fantastic sour beers.

Dogfish Head Brewery is one of the most famous East-Coast breweries largely because of its founder, Sam Calagione, and his obsession with strange beers. Dogfish Head opened as a brewpub named Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats in 1995 in Rehoboth, Delaware. This was the first brewery to open in the state since prohibition was lifted, and Sam actually had to have the law changed to allow the business to open. The brewpub flourished, no doubt helped by the lack of competition at the time, and quickly moved from their 12 gallon system to a 12 barrel system, allowing for bottling and distribution. By 2002 Dogfish Head had outgrown their second brewery, and to meet the increased demand they moved their main brewing and bottling operations to a new facility in Milton, Delaware, which continues to expand with growing demand.

The strange beers obsession has been with Dogfish Head since the beginning. Sam’s first beer was a pumpkin beer named Punkin Ale. This, as explained by Calagione, was the beer that convinced him to open the brewery; he entered it into the food contest at Pumkin Chunkin and won first place, which made him think “how hard could this be?” Since then, Calagione has made the brewery’s motto “Off-centered ales, for off-centered people”, which perfectly describes his brewing style. I have never even heard of, much less seen, a “normal” beer from dogfish head; Sam always has some special twist on the style. The perfect examples are their Chicory Stout and IPA line. The Chicory Stout combines the standard malt and hops with oatmeal, coffee and chicory, which gives it a unique taste which I thoroughly enjoyed. The IPAs, on the other hand, always seem to sweet for me; given the other Dogfish Head beers I’ve had this is not surprising, but I don’t know if it’s by flaw or design. Because of this, I’ve never really known how to evaluate Calagione’s brewing abilities; is he actually a fantastic brewer who can’t stand mundane beers, or is he actually not very good technically but covers for it by experimenting with crazy things?

Regardless of how good or bad his brewing skills may be, kudos to Sam for being willing to experiment. He has brewed an impressive number of different beers, ranging from a series of Ancient Ales based on recipes compiled from forensic archeology, to Pangaea, a beer brewed with an ingredient from every continent. The beer I reviewed today, however, was the World Wide Stout.

The World Wide Stout is an Imperial Stout that I’ve heard quite a bit about over the years. The beer poured black, with a finger of light brown head which lasted a surprisingly long time for this beer, given its high alcohol content, actually leaving a little lacing on the glass. The aroma was of a nice, roasty maltiness, with significant alcohol and sweet notes. The taste was quite malty without being burnt, and had some coffee notes, but the hops definitely took a back seat in this beer. The body was thick, but the carbonation level was moderate to the point where I didn’t really notice it was carbonated or flat, which is actually right where I like it. The biggest thing I noticed about this beer was that it was quite sweet. I don’t mean like a sweet (milk) stout sweet, either. It tasted very much like there was a lot of….well, sugar in the beer that yeast were not able to digest. This is not surprising given the 18 ABV alcohol content, but I don’t really like sweet beers, so I personally consider it a flaw.

As a whole, however, the World Wide Stout is actually very good and surprisingly drinkable for a RIS. I’d recommend giving it a shot, especially if you are a new beer drinker and want to give stouts a try; if you are used to sodas and other sweet American drinks, this will be an easy transition beer, especially since it won’t punch you in the face with hops.

Price: $7.50

Size: 12 oz

ABV:18%

Appearance: 4 /5

Aroma: 4/5

Flavor: 3.5/5

Mouthfeel: 4/5

Weyerbacher Riserva 2010

One of my favorite local microbreweries is the Weyerbacher Brewing Company. Although I was somewhat disappointed by their Imperial Pumpkin Ale when I reviewed it at Halloween, I love their Double Simcoe IPA and Old Heathen Barleywine. Over the past year or so I’ve been staring at their Riserva 2010 Raspberry American Wild Ale every time I checkout at The Foodery, and I finally broke down and bought a bottle. As Riserva is a bottle conditioned wild ale (translation: a sour ale that was carbonated by yeast after it was bottled, for all the non-beer fanatics out there), every year is significantly different, and even within a year bottles will vary depending on age and storage conditions.

Weyerbacher is a moderate sized microbrewery located in ­­­­Easton, PA. The brewery was founded in 1995 by Dan and Sue Weirbeck, and in 2005 purchased Victory Brewing Company’s 25 barrel brew system, and since then has continued to upgrade their brewhouse and equipment. Among the upgrades is a new bottling line that increased their capacity to 250 cases per hour, which along with the new brewhouse has allowed the company to expand distribution to 18 states.

The beer poured a deep, clear red amber with golden highlights; these highlights were accentuated by the fact that virtually no head or lacing was present. When I initially uncorked this beer, I noticed that there was very little positive pressure in the bottle, which to be honest scares me a bit. Weyerbacher, however, actually noted this on the side of the bottle, stating that the elevated acidity inhibited the carbonation in the beer; this makes sense, as a lower pH will reduce the viability of the yeast needed for bottle conditioning. The aroma was low, but was dark and almost spicy, drawing significantly on the non-sweet, tangy notes from the raspberries.

The initial impression from this beer is of a very intense sourness; so sour, in fact, that I got the jaw-locking sensation I recall from Warheads candy. I noticed this intense sourness even before I noticed any of the mouthfeel, which is quite unusual, but despite its intensity it lacked the complexity of the Russian River sours I’ve tried. Russian River gets this complexity by mixing multiple types of bacteria with multiple strains of Brettanomyces, so it’s likely that Riserva uses a substantially less complex mix of souring agents. The mouthfeel was fairly thick, and grew to be almost cloying during the aftertaste. The carbonation was quite low, but at the very end of the sip had a very subtle and fine fizziness, accentuated by an acidic bite. The taste of this beer was dominated by the raspberry character, which actually reminded me of fake raspberry flavor. This likely resulted from the large amount of puree that was added to the wort; the sugars fermented, leaving behind the only the flavor-causing compounds. Despite the overpowering raspberry, this was a surprisingly sweet beer. I suspect the sweetness is from sugars added to carbonate the bottle, but which were unused due to preserving action of the acidity. The last thing I noticed about this beer is that it lingered, leaving an unpleasant sourness in the mouth long after I had finished drinking it. I like sour, but I also want to have my taste buds intact.

I actually like this beer, but I think it’s got some room for improvement. I’d like to see the complexity of the sourness increased, although that may come with age, and I’d like both the sweetness and the raspberry to be dialed back a bit. If you like sour fruit beers, give this one a shot, but other than that I would leave it alone; the price coupled with the sourness make this a hard beer to justify unless you know you like the style.

Price: $21.50

Size: 750 mL

ABV: 11.4%

Appearance: 4 /5

Aroma: 3.5/5

Flavor: 3.5/5

Mouthfeel: 4/5