Devil's Kriek and the Joy of Vintages

Beer and wine aren't radically different--both are mildly alcoholic, social beverages that go well with meals--but the people who make them are. Wine makers are steely, artistic types who don't mind impressionistic results. They have some control over aggregate circumstances--where they plant their grapes, which kinds, how they tend them--but the end product comes from the sky. One becomes a wine maker knowing that her company's product will never be the same from one year to the next.

Brewers, of course, prize precision. Although they must contend with the natural environment, they are not controlled by it. They can easily adjust pH, IBUs, and malt bills to adjust for the changes mother nature throws at them.

In much the same way, beer drinkers like consistency. They know that a Pliny the Elder is going to have that insane, piney hop kick every time they buy a bottle. Wine-drinkers appear to love the hunt. They track vintages and wineries, and know that a bottle of Erath pinot from 2005 and 2006 won't taste the same--and which is better.

This is why I admire the annual experiments conducted by Matt Swihart and Ron Gansberg as they make their annual fruit beers. Like wine makers, both are dependent on the quality of the fruit, and neither can replicate beers year to year. Ron has the advantage of being able to select the finest cherry and apricot crops he can find; even still, his beers vary markedly year-to-year. (Two years ago, the Apricot was amazing, but last year, the Kriek was the big winner. I have yet to sample the current vintages.) Matt Swihart has even less control: he uses cherries grown in his own orchard. Like a wine-maker, fruit is destiny, and no two vintages will taste the same.

Last Thursday, Double Mountain debuted their new vintage and I scampered down to Belmont Station to have a pour. Matt is still tinkering with the recipe and process for Devil's Kriek, and in addition to the variance in cherries, the base beer was quite a bit different this year. The original kriek was based on Devil's Kitchen, a golden strong ale; this year, Matt made a brown ale base. The two strands of cherry beers brewed in Belgium are lambics, made on a pale base, and the red/brown beers of Flanders. (You can see it pretty clearly in the photo at right.) Beyond that, he also used about twice the amount of Bing cherries as he did last year.

Yet there's also the matter of the crop. Recall that last year the Northwest produced a record cherry crop, "producing one of the best crops of cherries I have ever seen in my decade as a gentleman farmer," as Matt said. This allowed them to leave the fruit on the tree longer, allowing them to ripen to more intense flavor, create more sugar, and darken the tannin-rich skins.

The combination of great fruit and the new brown ale recipe? Amazing. Darker malts work especially well with cherries. The combination of pit-bitterness and tannin from the skins pull out the nutty, chocolaty flavors from the dark malts. The cherry's flavors marry perfectly with wild-yeast sourness. Together, the deeper, more resonant malts and bright, sharp sour are a perfect combination. Other fruit works with soured ales, but there's a reason breweries come back to cherries. This year's batch of Devil's Kriek hits all these notes. The fruit is especially fresh and intense, and I imagine this will be a rare vintage. Matt sours Devil's Kriek with brettanomyces, but poured cold, the sour isn't particularly funky. As it warms, some of the barnyard aromas begin to emerge, and the sourness softens from bell-like sharpness into a more organic, funky sour.

(I would like to host a symposium some day where I put Matt, Ron, and Rob Tod on a panel together. Matt is a brett man, but eschews lactobacillus. Ron is lacto man, eschewing brett. And Rob is a spontaneous man, daring to dance with pediococcus and other bacteria and funk. All right gentlemen, discuss.)

I wasn't a huge fan of last year's batch, though it pained me to admit it. Of course, that's the nature of the beast. Some years, Matt will spend 14+ months growing fruit and brewing and aging beer only to make an average beer. On the other hand, some years will be like this, when those 14 months produce a world-class beer. The beer fan in me wishes he could figure out a way to make it predictable, but that's not the way with fruit beer. Like crops, some are better than others. We have to live in the moment and enjoy the bounty while it's available. Matt says this batch will be on tap at Double Mountain regularly, probably for the better part of a year. You can also find it at the Portland International Beerfest this weekend. Enjoy it while you can.

American Lambics: Allagash Spontaneous and Jolly Pumpkin Lambicus Dexterius

The history of modern brewing can be described as the triumph of sanitation--keeping wild yeasts out of beer. The central achievements of the past 150 years do not involve flavor innovation but the mastery, through refrigeration, pasteurization, and the application of industrial chemicals, of yeast. The one way to ruin a good brewery was through lax standards and the introduction of infectious, unwanted yeasts. This is why the experiments at Allagash and Jolly Pumpkin are so remarkable. Not only are they not trying to keep wild yeasts out, they're actively encouraging them to wander in.

Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to sample the lambic experiments* of these two breweries, and it was like witnessing a birth. This process is ancient, obscure, and onerous. To see it transplanted and revived in the US borders on miraculous.

Spontaneous fermentation is an ancient practice--yeast wasn't even discovered until the mid-1800s. By then breweries had more or less figured out that leaving inoculation to chance was unwise; they re-pitched by dumping dregs of one batch into the next. They effectively domesticated yeast without knowing it existed. Before that, they brewed a batch of wort and let it sit out. Some natural process unknown to the brewers--God perhaps, or magic--caused the liquid to ferment.

A few breweries still make beer this way, and until five years ago, they were all located in Belgium. These breweries have special facilities where they allow wort to cool, taking in the microflora from the countryside. The vessel in which the wort rests is called a "koelschip," and once the wort has spent a night there, it absorbs the final ingredients to turn it to beer. Brewers return the liquid to casks, where it sits for months or years, waiting while throngs of micro-organisms slowly turn the sugars into alcohol, acids, and other compounds (brief primer here) and create some of the most interesting beer in the world. Only a handful of traditional lambic breweries remain, and their annual production is like a rounding error for a larger brewery.

And yet Allagash and Jolly Pumpkin have taken up the old ways. Both have hewn to tradition, too: they use the appropriate amount of wheat in the grist (about a third), employ a turbid mash, use aged hops (to impart bacteria-inhibiting compounds but no bitterness), and both used a coolship. I visited Allagash in November 2008 and wrote about the brewing process here. Jolly Pumpkin's Ron Jeffries describes his process here. Given these similarities, the lambics we tried on Tuesday, including two Belgian examples, were differentiated principally by the wild, native buggies of the regions they were fermented: Maine, Michigan, and Belgium. And different they were!

The Allagash lambics are not commercially available. I begged and wheedled and managed to get brewer Jason Perkins to send me some samples. They almost certainly will be at some point--everyone was so impressed with their character and accomplishment I can't believe they won't get released. In some ways, lambics are more like wines than beer; they depend so much on factors beyond the brewer's control that vintages vary widely depending on when they were brewed. Some measure of consistency comes from blending, but what you mainly get from a lambic producer is a house character. Boon's is more lactic, Cantillon's drier. I suspect the general character we found in the Allagash beers will carry through on future vintages. The Jolly Pumpkin is commercially available, though you probably have to go to Ann Arbor to get a bottle.

The tasting notes are arranged in the order we tasted them. The tasting panel** consisted of Derek from Beer Around Town, his friend Josh Grgas, Sally, and Upright's Alex Ganum. My sense is that we generally shared similar experiences, though we related to the beers a little differently. I was very happy to have Alex on board--as a proxy brewer for Ron, Rob, or Jason, we couldn't have done a lot better. Geoff Phillips was kind enough to lend us a table at Bailey's to host the tasting, too. Here goes.

Jolly Pumpkin Lambicus Dexterius
A gueuze of lambics aged 4, 3 1/2 and 2 1/2 years. This was, by an order of magnitude, the most funky beer at the table. Bottled still, it poured out like apple juice. The nose was sharp and solventlike; imagine a bottle of nail polish. Sally, who is sensitive to oak, picked this up right away. Very dry, with a grape-skin pucker. As the beer sloshes around the mouth, it seems funky but not deadly; swallowing it, though, is like taking a hit of acetic acid from a chem lab beaker. Easily the most acidic beer I've ever tasted. We were all left a little shell-shocked afterward. My comment is that I hope the intensity can be adjusted through blending. Even for lambic freaks, this is likely a bridge too far. Sour-o-meter reading: 6.

Allagash Coolship Resurgam
A gueuze of 2-year, 18-month, and six-month lambic. A livelier beer, but not exactly effervescent. Right after we opened the bottle, I was picking up a sharp note in the sour nose that I think might have been butyric acid. With a moment of breathing, this vanished, leaving a peppery, lemony scent. It has a soft, dry palate that suggested wheat. I found it far less acidic--with the lemon, it was more on the tart side. We were all picking up a bit of hoppy bitterness on the palate, too. I know Allagash is in the process of aging their hops, but possibly they haven't been aged enough. (Though to tell you the truth, the mild hop bitterness did not clash with the beer--it was just less traditional.) My favorite gueuze is Frank Boon's, which is drier, sharper, and extremely effervescent. Allagash's is not yet as complex as that, but it is remarkable for a first draft, and makes me think it may one day ascend to that level. Given that it's a beer made with the wildest, untamed new world yeasts, I expected something a little more nasty--like the Jolly Pumpkin. Yet it was almost gentle. Sour-o-meter reading: 4.

Oud Beersel Gueuze
Typical for style, the Oud Beersel boasted champagne-like effervescence. I noticed a distinctive inner-tube aroma that could also be called skunk. A bit musty, cellarlike. The flavor, though, is much more approachable than either American example. It was the sweetest of the non-fruit lambics, but Alex was certain these were esters. We had a mini debate about whether it really was sweet or just tasted fruity. Alex brews with one of the driest yeasts available, so he should know; still, my tongue tells me what it tells me: sweet. The finish is light and refreshing. An uncomplicated gueuze--if such a thing exists. Sour-o-meter reading: 3.

Allagash Red
I assume it's the same recipe as the cherry blend (see below), but I haven't found confirmation; though the blend was definitely aged on raspberries for three months. Even in the bottle, you could see the vivid red of this beer. It was fairly effervescent, and easily the prettiest beer of the afternoon. Reminiscent of Cascade's Apricot, the aroma was saturated with fresh raspberries. Interestingly, their flavor was quite subtle. Instead, it was a drier, more tart and more refreshing version of their regular gueuze. The body was quite thin--too thin for some of the tasters. I sensed some disappointment around the table that, after the splash of color and rich aroma, the beer lacked the intense flavor of raspberries. I thought it was quite stylish, though--so flashy to see and smell, but then coy and reserved on the tongue. It was my favorite of the night. Until we cracked the cherry lambic.... Sour-o-meter reading: 4.

Allagash Cerise
A blend of 90% 2-year lambic with 10% six-month, then aged for three months with local Maine Montmorency tart cherries. Brewer Jason Perkins calls it "albino kriek," and it's easy to see why: the cherries give the beer almost no color. The nose carries a bit more cherry, but not a great deal. But then, in a mirror image of the Red, the flavor explodes with fruit. It pops with cherry--deep and peppery. The sour is softened a bit by the spiciness and pit bitterness of the fruit, but the cherry is softened by the lambic--its bright, fresh flavors smoothed and darkened. (There's a reason cherries are the go-to fruit with sour ales.) The body was a bit fuller than either of the other two Allagash beers. The table was unanimous in declaring this the afternoon's best beer. Sour-o-meter reading: 3.5.

Girardin Gueuze
We finished up the tasting with a visit back to Belgium. Like the Oud Beersel, Girardin's Gueuze was very lively, sending the cork up toward the ceiling. I was pleased to find the inner tube aroma again--an expression of Belgium's unique character. It was more lactic and more peppery than Oud Beersel, akin to a Berlinner Weisse in its sharpness and thin body. Not so much funky sourness, just a crisp, sharp, citric sourness. Sour-o-meter reading: 4.

It was a truly singular experience. I feel most indebted to Derek for sharing his Jolly Pumpkin, to Josh for sharing his Girardin, and to the folks at Allagash for sending me three precious bottles of their lambics.
_____________
*The word "lambic" is somewhat fraught. The most exclusive definition limits its application, like a wine appellation, to the Zenne Valley in Belgium. I've also heard people call beers "lambics" if they use wild yeasts--even ones pitched from a Wyeast starter. In my mind, any brewery that is willing to subject a turbid-mashed wort to a night's fresh air and adds no other yeasts has brewed a lambic, full stop. I am prepared to risk Belgian terrorists who dispute this use.

**The tasting panel was supposed to be bigger and include more bloggers. We had several cancellations, and by the time of the tasting, we hadn't had enough time to get the word out to other bloggers. I regret that I wasn't able to share it with more of you.

Double Mountain Devil's Kriek

Beer is local. Or was, anyway, before industrialization. Styles emerged from available ingredients, local culture, weather, water--a host of circumstances. The Zenne Valley is reputed to be so hospitible to spontaneous fermentation because local fruit trees (now mostly gone) housed tasty wild yeasts. The monks of Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint Remy brewed beer in the sixteenth century from barley and hops grown on abbey grounds. Bohemian pilsners and West Coast pale ales wouldn't be recognizeable without native hops. But then the industrial revolution made it possible for breweries to receive ingredients from thousands of miles away; its arrival meant the loss of indigenous styles and the homogenization of national brewing.

But now we are following our tracks backward, and that's what makes Double Mountain's Devil's Kriek experiment especially exciting. Made with cherries grown in brewer Matt Swihart's orchards, they return us to that time of specific locality. A kriek with Rainier cherries?--must be from the American Northwest. Ah, but the experiment also shows the drawbacks of depending on specific crops. Limiting yourself to a single orchard means living and dying by the vagaries of your fruit. Forget consistency; like wine, each year's kriek will exhibit the qualities of the cherries. Some will be better than others, and people who admire the product will admire this variability.

About seven thousand people showed up at Belmont Station on Friday to get a glass of the '09 vintage (made of '08 cherries), and I was among them. (The line was seriously insane, stretching out the door and down the sidewalk to the corner. Fortunately, we got there by 5:50 and beat the worst of the crowd.) Here's what I thought.

Devil's Kriek
Although I got the lowdown on the beer from Matt Swihart at Belmont Station--he was there handing out cherries from his orchard--he actually blogged about the brewing process on Friday.

"The base for our Krieks is a blend of three batches of a strong golden-colored beer, each fermented with a different yeast: our house ale yeast, which is of Belgian origin; our house Kölsch yeast; and the notorious wild yeast Brettanomyces. We’ve used Brettanomyces before, in the Red Devil, the IRB and in last year’s Devil’s Kriek. “Brett” contribues subtle fruitiness and barnyard character (think of smells in an old barn on a cold day) at low-level intensity and a horse blanket character (think of smells in a horse barn on a very hot day) at high intensity. Brett is also a component of many spontaneously-fermented French wines, as has legions of both fans and detractors in the winemaking world.

"Devil’s Kriek was held on the cherries for 9 months, then transferred and stored cool at 34F for the remaining 3 months. The Rainier Kriek sat on cherries for the entire 12 month process at cellar temperatures ranging from 50F to 75F. The warmer ferment on the fruit allowed the Brett to assert itself more fully, driving the acidity lower and kicking out a stronger wild-yeast character. We brewed 20 barrels of Devil’s Kriek in a regular fermenter, along with 3 barrels of Rainier Kriek in a mobile mini-fermenter that was originally in service as a yeast propagation tank at Widmer."

The beer is a massive 9%, similar to the sours Ron Gansberg brews--a decision I don't fully understand. Most of the Belgian sours, and particularly the fruit lambics, run about 5%. In my experience, this allows the more subtle and volatile essences of the fruit to express themselves. The force of flavor is in no way diminished in beers of even 4% or less; and unlike other elements of beer, sour doesn't depend on alcohol or malt. Of course, Gansberg's 2008 Apricot Ale had one of the most lush aromas I've ever encountered, and he uses a tripel as his base, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. (And wouldn't that be shocking?)

As you can see in the photo, Rainier Kriek drew very little color from the fruit; it's also a lot cloudier than the Devil's, which had a pinot-like clarity and depth of hue (though the color's all bing). Mostly the Rainier Kriek was characterized by sourness--if the cherries contributed anything, it was just at the threshold of identification. (This isn't too surprising--Rainier cherries are in no way assertive. They have a gentle cherry flavor but mostly a neutral sweetness. Cherries for people who don't like cherries.) The sour was lovely, though. I asked Matt what strain of brettanomyces he used and whether it was some kind of mild strain. (No.) Brett can get pretty funky, but not here. I found it gently sour and almost a little salty. Somehow it retained some residual sweetness, too, and the body was thicker than I expected from a brett-soured ale. A nice, quaffable beer, if such a thing can be said about a 9% sour ale. Call it a B+ on the patented rating scale.

The Devil's Kriek has a candy nose with an undercurrent of chocolate and almost no sour. The flavor is surprising; as in the nose there's almost no sourness. Instead the fruit contributes the beer's two main notes, a subdued cherry and a bitter, tannic note that I assume came from the pits. As it warms, the bitter note diminishes and a bit more of the cherry comes out. Appropriately, it's fairly dry and not at all cloying--the brettanomyces have taken care of any stray sugars that might have been floating around. I suppose you can intuit the size of the beer by the mouthfeel, but the alcohol isn't especially obvious.

"Not especially obvious" could be the three-word bullet for Devil's Kriek. It's a subtle, refined beer, and toward the end of the glass I was appreciating its wine-like character. But since I had the 2008 version in my head--I recall a tour-de-force of both sour and cherry intensity--I found it a bit underwhelming. Call it a B-.

Based on my discussions with Ron Gansberg, fruit is hard to work with. If you're not a tinkerer, forget it. My guess is that Matt is already adapting. He said he'll leave this year's fruit on the tree for a couple weeks longer so it ripens more. This should give the beer a more intense cherry flavor and allow him to take the fruit off sooner so it doesn't extract as much from the pits. But of course, that's if the fruit cooperates.

Still, I encourage everyone to track this beer down and have a glass. There aren't very many products like it in the world, and it's a rare treat to have a local brewer willing to put this much time and effort into any beer. Give it time--in a few years it could emerge as an Oregon classic. Plus, you need to fix it in your mind so that next year you have a basis for comparison.