Blanche de Trois Rivières

I will continue this weekend with a recent effort to review a number of different wheat beers, the wheat beer being the exception style that proves the rule of the Reinheitsgebot passed by Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria in 1516 that "no other items be used for beer than barley, hops, and water." Note of course that because it was not yet known with certainty until Louis Pasteur's work in the 19th century that yeast is an essential part of beer making, this magical micro-organism is omitted from the list of acceptable ingredient. But more to the point of this post, wheat malt was included as a notable exception in Bavaria even during the old days, when the Reinheitsgebot was used more for taxation purposes and granting monopolistic power to brewers than for ensuring that what beer drinkers got in their beer was not made from saw dust porridge flavoured with dandelion.

I'll take this opportunity for an initial jab at the Blanche de Trois Rivières, made by the Frères Houblon brewery from Trois Rivières in the Mauricie region of Quebec, since they state on their website that this wheat beer is made with not just barley and wheat malt, but also with oats. Now I do not mind the use of oats at all, and my experience as a home brewer has taught me that using oats in your beer gives it a wonderfully creamy foam head. I have to say that this beer did not pour a nice foam head at all and was surprisingly fizzy from the moment it left the comfy confines of its 500 ml bottle, a home that enticed me to pick up this specimen in the first place (regular readers will be well aware of my aversion to midget extinguishers). The Blanche de Trois Rivières is of course also a Belgian style wheat beer (wit), and made in part from organic barley malts, which is quite laudable. However, with the notable exception of Beau's, I have yet to taste a beer made with organic ingredients that has quite measured up to the standards of those made with regular raw materials (I suppose inorganic would be an entirely inappropriate choice of words for the opposite of organic in the modern sense of the word).

Rarely have I given poor reviews to beers, but this one simply does not measure up to what my humble, if snobbish, palate demands (is a humbly snobbish palate an oxymoron?). I do expect certain malt notes from all my beers, but especially from my wheat beers, and when I sampled this beer all I could think about was Homer Simpson saying "Hello, taste, where are you?" Other than the foam head, the beer did have a very nice appearance, but despite the visual evidence of abundant suspended yeast particles, there was no discernible flavour of fruit, spice, bread or other yeasty goodness in this concoction (or rather, decoction). There was an acidic yeast flavour akin to plain yogurt, as well as plenty of ashtray flavour, which is hard to describe because most of us don't go around licking the remnants of ashtrays, but think of the effect on your palate of someone blowing the contents of an ashtray into your mouth. And given the lack of sweet malt flavours in this beer, the hops were also out of balance, with too much lingering bitterness than is appropriate for this style of beer. Blah - I think the Frères Houblons would bet better off sticking to making what their name implies - hoppy bitter beers.

Belle Gueule Hefeweizen

You just know by the title of this post that something special is going on here: A French - or better, Quebecois - beer brand name together with the German wheat beer style. Not long ago I have ranted (or at least lamented) about the inferiority of Belgian wheat beer compared to German wheat beer, and living in Quebec, one has to accept the fact that most brewers here are inspired by the former witbier/blanch style, rather than the latter. But to the rescue come my good friends at les Brasseurs RJ, whose Belle Gueule Pilsner I have previous featured on this blog. These guys are truly amazing - one of two breweries in Quebec that appreciates making authentic German style beer, the other being of course Les Trois Mousquetaires. I used to play soccer in a park right next to the RJ brewery, and as you might imagine, the best time to play was when they were mashing and the wind would blow over the fabulous aroma of steeped barley, sending an extra spring into my legs.

The brewery, located just at the edge of the still-trendy-although-now-somewhat-less-so Plateau Montreal's neighborhood, certainly has grown up since they were formed from a merger of three older microbreweries, as can be seen by the age validation function on their website, which appears on the webpages of all major breweries around the world these days. While I understand that having to enter one's birth date as "proof" of legal drinking age to visit a brewery's website may satisfy regulative requirements, both the requirement and the method of meeting its demands seem absurd to me. If it there is a legal drinking age, why should this age correspond to a legal age for reading about beer and seeing pictures of beer? And anyone with the skills to type and enough brains to know his or her age can probably figure out what to do to see the website regardless of their actual date of birth. It's the ugly truth about corporate life: Pretend that you are trying to do what you are supposed to and regulators, customers, or other stakeholders will acquiesce and leave you in peace.

Getting back to les Brasseurs RJ and their Hefeweizen, they have done a fine job interpreting the Bavarian style, the main shortcoming of this lovely beer being that it comes in a midget extinguisher format. The nose and overall character of this beer screams "Freistaat Bayern" out so loudly that you may as well cover it in a blue and white checkered flag. Gentle banana and orange peel aromas dominate the nose and mix together with delicious white bread malts at the front of the palate. This is real Bavarian wheat beer yeast! Even the colour of this beer reminisces a fine Bavarian style, like Erdinder or Hacker-Pschorr, with a pleasing orange-hazy appearance. I'd have to say that the middle palate could do with more bread and less yeast flavors. There is also an ever so slight ethanol note here, which is common in many Bavarian Hefeweizen brands. The magic of yeast and the many mysterious flavours it produces!! The finish is nicely fruity-acidic and carries some lingering malt notes in stylish fashion that it makes me want to put on my Lederhosen and engage in some good old fashioned shoe-slapping.

Samson Tmavý ležák

I have an intriguing star for tonight - and it could hardly be a starlet, with a name like Samson. An initially suspect character, who, much like many other beers on the shelves in the provincial Liquor Stores (SAQ), appeared to be yet another brand from a small brewery, bought up by a giant brewing concern and its beer production made more efficient, and then sold all over the world devoid of its original balance and surprises. But at least I found something that seemed to be entirely different than the usual riff-raff off the store shelves: a black lager. According to this website, it is a "Dunkles Lagerbier" - a dark lager - which is also its designation on the label. Better still, a dark lager from the Czech republic, one of the finest nations in the world of beer brewing. Apparently, this is a beer style that in the Czech Republic may come in all kinds of strengths, colours, and sweetness. This specimen certainly came in a distinctive bottle, with a nice tin foil wrapper, regal label, and in an appropriate 500 ml bottle. How seductive, I thought, but I was still suspicious that this would be another beauty turned into a brute.

When I poured this beer, I was a little disappointed by the foam head, which fizzed away relatively loudly at first, then settled, but finally did not sustain itself for long. Soon though, this beer turned me by the palate - there was something that made me think of it as a nice alternative to a porter and maybe even a stout. It had a remarkably complex malty character, one that created a rich sensation of creamy dark roasted barley. At the same time, there was a very sweet overtone at the tip of the tongue that seemed to capture the essence of efficiency gains. Still, the beer was well balanced on the whole, combining a malty mash with very gentle hopping that produced no lingering bitterness and cut the palate just at the right time.

I was intrigued by this beer and wanted to find out its provenance. This proved to be a difficult undertaking, the conclusion of which is ongoing suspicion about this being a brute Samson, not a beautiful Samson. There is a Czech website, in Czech only, from which I gather that what I have savoured is either a separate export brew or, more likely, the Tmavý ležák 12° brand. The website itself is designed in a Western business style typical for other larger or international breweries, with age verification, a responsible drinking page, and description of the brands as well as the generic brewing process. The name on the website is Pivovar Samson, a.s. But when you search for the brewery that is listed as the producer on the SAQ website (apparently misspelled, of course), you find out about an original Budweiser Bier or Budweiser Bürgerbräu Brewery (Budweiser citizens brewery) founded in 1795 by Germans. Oddly, the beer label prominently displays that date but lists Pivovar Samson as the brewer and claims emphatically "original Czech lager." Finally, I found one Czech newspaper article from 2011, which I more or less deciphered with the help of Google Translate to report that the Samson brewery had been sold to a company called JD Beer Invest, which itself is reported to be linked to a Dutch company called Collis. 

This is where the trail ended for me, and I handed the task over to speculation. It is possible that this beer is still made by an independent brewery, given information that they have been exporting to the United States for over a century, and that according to the Wikipedia entry, they were a third company involved in the trade name dispute of the Budweiser name with Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser Budvar. But what about the discrepancies in company names, the marketing style, and the sleek website, not to mention the simple wisdom that if this beer shows up at the SAQ, it is most likely to belong to a major global brewing group? I'd like to think differently, but something is definitely skunky about this story, which is symbolized by the fact that this beer comes in a green bottle.

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!