Dominus Vobiscum Blanche

I suppose it is no secret by now that I like wheat beers almost as much as I like Pilsener beers (and as much as I like IPA, stout, porter, Lambic, Alt, Kolsch, pretty much all lagers, as well as most other of all remaining beer styles). Today's beer is the Blanche of the Dominus Vobiscum line of products by la Microbrasserie Charlevoix, about whose La Vache Folle I have previously posted. May the Lord be with you indeed! Seldom do you see such a truly white coloured beer combined with such a majestic foam cap as this beer poured. You can see inside the glass a spike of cloudy yeast spreading into the beer.

Now I may have said this before and at the risk of being repetitive, I'll have to say again that the Belgian wheat beer style just cannot reach the same lofty heights of sumptuous deliciousness as can Bavarian wheat beers. There just is no comparison, as this beer demonstrates in some respects, and despite the fact that it is a Quebecois interpretation of the Belgian style. When you wrap your teeth around a German wheat beer, it is like a full meal, including a rich appetizer, a well balanced and nutritious main course, to be followed by a deliciously subtle yet tantalizing dessert to finish things off. This beer is a fine beer - let's make no mistake about it - but its palate immediate becomes dominated by one aroma: Cloves. And then there were some more cloves. And before I knew it, my tongue had been nailed to the top of my palate with cloves (if you understand French, perhaps you can also understand why this might be the case).

And for all the clove, I almost forgot to mention some of the banana flavours that seep through, and the slightly sour yeast character that you can taste intensely at the front and which continue more subtly throughout the palate. Now I do appreciate this acidity especially at the end of the palate because it provides for a clean and dry finish. But what is missing for me is a more ripe fruit character and some more rich bready malt flavour in the middle. The Belgian style, and this beer is no exception, favours the yeast flavours so much over the malts (and never mind the hops) that the beer even looses some of its middle palate thirst extinguishing characteristics.

The label description indicates that this is a spiced beer, so flavouring agents were added to the wort to spike the natural yeast tastes. I am just no fan of foreign objects in my beer. You can say what you want against the Reinheitsgebot, there is nevertheless something to be appreciated about what one can do uniquely with those four basic ingredients in beer, which can be combined in unimaginably many different ways limited only by the brewmaster's imagination. Brewing is after all, not just science, but also art.

And so, after coming home from work on my bicycle on a wonderfully warm fall day, I took the Dominus Vobiscum Blanche outside into the eerie late afternoon light, with the fall mood still in full parade. And as already mentioned, the head I was able to build was fabulous- a white snow capped mountain peak that reached far beyond the rim of my mug. Take a peek!

 

I leave you with the dark and ominous clouds over the red sky of Charlevoix, which provides another fine sample of the fascinating beer labels in Quebec and, together with this entire post, nicely exemplifies something about which I had talked with a colleague earlier today. if you are wondering about the grainy picture, well that is so because the label on the bottle was faded, and what you get on this blog is only the unadulterated evidence.

Hacker-Pschorr Hefeweizen

Tonight, I had another liquid memory from the Munich days, even if this one is a sad story, in some ways. The Hacker-Pschorr Hefeweizen - and what a wonderfully opaque brew this is (see below for evidence), rich with yeast and satisfying as a result. For you folks out there having some trouble with the word Hefeweizen, it is pronounced "He-fuh-vai-tsen" and it literally means "Yeast-wheat", denoting of course the use of wheat malt and a secondary re-fermentation with yeast sediment in the bottle. But, while the beer is lovely, the story is not: Hacker-Pschorr is another German brewery gone, taken to the big boys' league and now haunting the world as "a brand without a brewery" (The Oxford Companion to Beer, p.415). It is a fallen institution in the Munich beer brewing scene, established in 1417, and always exotic because it is so much more difficult to pronounce for the English speaking world than the names of other local breweries (e.g., Spaten or Löwenbräu). It was snatched up by the Heineken Group, although not with a controlling interest, after first being acquired by the now gigantic Paulaner Brewery, also of Munich. My memories of Hacker-Pschorr are not vivid nor extensive, I just recall always having thought that the part after the hyphen epitomized a Bavarian sounding name.

Hacker-Pschorr will get the honor of starring together with the Canadian fall. This summer, we did not have much rain, and the fall weather has been gentle. In my neighbourhood, the maple leafs are in full bloom of red, orange, and gold colours, and after a good night's rain, many leafs have started to fall. My daughter and I collected some and then decorated the stage for the lovely Hacker-Pschorr Hefeweizen to give this fine German beer a worthy Canadian backdrop. But what do you say to a 6-year old when she asks you "Papa, why do you take pictures of beers?" My answer was along the lines of "well, you like playing with your Barbies and your Pollies ..."

And what a fine beer this is, quite different than even its Bavarian sisters in the Hefeweizen category that I have reviewed on these pages in previous posts (e.g., Schneiderweisse, Erdinger Weisse). It so gentle in the way the rich elixir flows over my palate that the only analogy I can only think of is eating a braided Easter bread loaf. The sweet malt and the yeast combine to create this effect, I think, and both aromas feature prominently also in the nose of this beer. The hops is very subtle, and the beer's balance seems to be complemented by some acidic clove and grapefruit notes in the yeast. Still, the palate is clean and dry, but without any real bitterness - quite remarkable. Note also the swivel top  bottle, which I always find delightful because you don't need a bottle opener and it is not a twist-top.

Oktoberfest des Quebecois

Oktoberfest in Quebec? Not as far fetched as you might think, even though Bavarian traditions have little real roots here, as the largest part of German immigrants to this province are apparently Hessian mercenaries invited by the British to help help defend against American invasions. But still, Bavaria has an official representation in Quebec, and likewise Quebec has an embassy-like office in Munich (I have proof of this from a photo I took there, but it was taken with an analogue camera and I do not have a scan handy). The two are clearly sister states/provinces, each thinking of itself as a distinct society within its country, each daydreaming (to varying degrees of seriousness) about secession, and each featuring a dialect that makes beer turn sour. As you might imagine, the Oktoberfest in Quebec, held about a month ago, had a serious presence from Bavaria, even as the event itself was held in a suburban location off Montreal island on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River.

Oktoberfest beer is commonly known to be a copper colour, Vienna lager or Märzen beer style, even though it is not really a style of its own. It simply means that the beer has been brewed especially for Bavaria's Oktoberfest, and the style of beer there has changed over the years. The honor to brew for Quebec's Oktoberfest was given to that wonderful outfit from Brossard: Les Trois Mousquetaires, which is our feature beer for this week. I wonder what the Bavarian representation thought of this, given that only breweries from Munich are officially allowed to supply Oktoberfest. Those guys at Trois Mousquetaires love their German beer styles, and for the most part they do a fine job. I would have to say, though, that there is a common taste to all their beers that strikes me as somewhat odd and that I would most closely associated with yeast.

Be that as it may, I did enjoy this beer, having had the opportunity to indulge in a mighty 750 ml bottle of what is billed as a strong beer on a fine fall day this weekend in the woods. As you can see below, it is a copper-reddish, unfiltered brew that builds a lovely foam head. It has a nice, caramel malt flavour that is also amazingly dry, and somehow this dryness is not entirely due to the well-balanced hop bitterness, which lingers subtly but affirmatively in the background. There is another acidic element contributing to the dryness of the palate, and I think it is the yeast, but I am not sure. Altogether, this well-balanced beer deserves to be downed in large quantities by all of you Oktoberfest maniacs out there. Ein Prosit!

Bishop's Best Bitter

Ah - Thanksgiving in Canada is today's holiday, and while it is clearly a secular celebration, the word holiday implies that something of a more ecclesiastical nature could be brought into the picture. So, while mixing the profane and the profound, let's get together those old partners in un-crime - brewery and church, which as we know have produced memorable partnerships over the centuries, particularly in the form of Trappist Breweries (such as Chimay and Orval) and Bieres D'Abbay in Belgium (such as Grimbergen and Maredsous), as well as Abteibrauereien in Germany (such as Andechs and Weihenstephan).

Our beer today comes from Quebec's longest operating brewery, the Golden Lion Brewery and Brewpub in Lennoxville. It opened its taps to the world in 1986, at roughly the same time as the Massawippi Brewing Company just around the corner in North Hatley. The latter was sold a few years later and eventually became Unibroue of Chambly. The Golden Lion is one of those regional phenomena, surviving on the strength of local success in Quebec's Eastern Townships, known there and to the devoted beerofiles in Quebec City and Montreal, but not much beyond. And why should they venture much further, as growth beyond the comfort zone can bring demise very quickly in this business? Unlike the Belgian and German alliances between heaven and earth mentioned above, The Golden Lion focuses on making British style ales. This Bishop's Best Bitter is full of double-entendre, bringing the vicar in touch with his suds, signalling the Brewery's association with the local post-secondary institution, Bishop's University, and opening a window in the wonderful tongue-in-cheek world of Quebec beer and beer label design.

This beer is perfectly placed between a traditional pale ale and an IPA, having a nice dark copper colour and creamy head that stood on its own like the white beard of an old monk sleeping in a hammock. Its nose is almost in IPA hops territory, featuring plenty of citrus and floral aromas. The malt is primarily dark caramel and toffee, but also producing a slight grain acidity that mingles well with the grapefruit hops tastes in the middle of the palate. The finish is at first quite spicy, with more grapefruit tangy, and then slowly blends into a lingering dry bitterness. Very satisfying, I must say, and worthy of its holy designation.

The bishop's delighted face on the label reminds me of a friend of mine after a few pints - a friend who shares his last name with the name of the town Lennoxville. How fitting!