#lambic-ish

[whatchudrinkin]

Shades

For Valentine’s Day, Sarah got me a bottle of Shades from Upright Brewing. This is the second bottle of Shades she’s given me in the last few years, and somehow I haven’t tasted it yet.

Shades is a golden ale fermented with whole rainier cherries in oak barrels. The yellow-pink rainier has a subtler, sweeter flavor than the dark ruddy bing. The flavor is more like a small stone fruit, a bite size nectarine. Upright takes pains not to call Shades and the darker Hearts’ Beat kriek. Though both are made with cherries, they don’t follow the strict guidelines of a Belgian lambic.

But it’s hard not to see the influence of the Pajottenland in Shades. It has some of the same wild yeast character seen in a Belgian cherry ale, notes of hay and freshly shorn sheep fleece. The acids from bacteria are subtle, balanced, drawing out the fruit flavor, not overwhelming it. The fruit is the real star. Those rainier cherries taste juicy and fresh even two years later. Maybe I should pull out that other bottle...

[whatchudrinkin]

A Dream in a Bottle

Tucked away in the woods near Bend, Oregon is a tiny brewery in a garage known as the Ale Apothecary. There is no tasting room; there are no bar stools. Just barrels and bottles of beer, all brewed with just two kinds of malt and Cascade hops. It’s a simple set up, but it makes complicated beer.

The brewery is the brainchild of Paul Arney. He comes from a family of pharmacists, thus the brewery name, but has been brewing professionally since the mid nineties. Each of his beers are mashed, fermented, and conditioned in oak barrels. He utilizes a house strain of Lactobacillus and leaves much the fermentation up to nature. Wild yeast pervades the entire Ale Apothecary line.

Sahalie is the brewery’s flagship beer, named for the brewer’s daughter. It’s fermented in a variety of oak barrels for a full year before being dry hopped and bottled to naturally carbonate. The end result is over nine percent alcohol and almost impossible to describe.

I mean, I guess you could say it’s like a Lambic. It’s sour, a little funky, dry, etc. But it’s more than that. It’s hoppy in a way you would never find in a Gueuze and not nearly as acidic. It’s very soft, more fluffy than fizzy, less sharp than shapely. 

Sahalie is tangy like a key lime. No, like golden raspberries. With a playful bite of acid balanced by wheaty malt. Those late hops add a nice earthiness that plays well with the wild yeast. Sahalie inviting and comfortable, gently lulling me into dreams of burbling mountain spring water and warm sun filtered through fir boughs.