100 Beers, 100 Days: Day #21
Week three, mother bitches! Let’s end this one fancy. I’m breakin’ out the champagne!
The bière de champagne style is a newer style and effort to finally bring Miller’s long-held promise to life. The Deus bottle, which has the distinction of being the most expensive beer I have ever purchased, came with a little booklet that outlines the ten-step process used to make it. Belgians love them some steps. It takes them nine just to pour a beer, and seriously half of those could be condensed into “don’t be a slob.” So in the interest of not listing some semitechnically-worded marketing material, what makes this beer’s process unique is: a) after being bottled with additional sugars and yeast, it’s shipped off to France to maintain for a while longer, II) they turn the bottle upside down after that and, 3) they cut off the part of the neck where all the yeast settles, add some more carbonation and stick a cork in the rest of the bottle. The result is an aged, filtered beer that’s supposed to look and taste like a sparkling white wine. Time to get out a flute and see.
The bottle opened with a sharp pop, and the beer poured a clear, light golden yellow with a big head that quickly settled and disappeared, leaving some steady streams of bubbles sparkling their way up through the glass. So far it looks a lot like a champagne. The aroma gives away its secret, full of sweet, earthy barley along with a tart, fruity smell. It tastes of sugars and malts and honey, but it isn’t a sweet beer; it’s balanced by a bright, fruity flavor, kind of like a sour apple, and some spiciness that I’m not going to try to label, maybe a flavor left by the yeast or maybe actual spices, probably both. The visible carbonation blends well into the taste, adding a little tickle but not an outright bite. It tastes and feels quite dry, not unlike a glass of champagne.
This is an interesting drink. The malt makes it taste pretty obviously like a beer, but it does have a lot of characteristics of a sparkling wine. It’s fruity, and it’s dry but not bitter. Deus wouldn’t be out of place at a New Year’s party, or before breakfast and a morning at Tiffany’s, or wherever champagne would be appropriate; and for the beer drinker it makes an interesting new style. I’d recommend trying one out if you ever feel inclined to pay more than $20 on a bottle of beer.
And thus passes another milestone. Looking back, here are some styles:
- Bière de champagne/Bière Brut/Brut des Flandres: 1
- Stout: 2
- Belgian-style dark: 1
- Pale wheat: 1
- Pale ale: 1
- Crappy lager: 2
- Bière blanche/witbier: 1
- Tripel: 1
- Dark Ale: 3
- Barleywine: 1
- IPA: 1
- Cream ale: 1
- Bière de garde: 1
- Hefeweizen: 2
- Good lager: 1
- Saison: 1
and countries
- Belgium: 3
- Jamaica: 1
- Canada: 2
- America: 7
- India: 1
- France: 2
- Lithuania: 1
- Ireland: 1
- England: 2
- Scotland: 1
and a more depressing metric that I think is important, of the past 21 beers, 13 of them are illegal in Alabama: 7 of them are stronger than 6% ABV, and 9 came in a bottle larger than 16 oz, which includes the half liter/ 16.9oz size of three. There’s information in that link on how to contact your state senator if you happen to be Abalamban and would like them to know your thoughts on the Gourmet Beer Bill of 2009.
And that’s enough politics. Three weeks, woo, yeah! I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find a hundred new beers when I started, but as I go on I keep finding new styles and new ideas, and I think this crazy plan might just work. It’s certainly been educational so far.