A Wanderlust For Some (Beer) Funk

We are the Beer Doctors. If you follow us on Facebook (and if you don’t, you should), you’d know our favorite beers are an American India Pale Ale (AIPA) and a Bavarian Hefeweizen. American IPAs, known for their bitterness from hops, are no doubt one of the most popular craft beer styles on the market. The meteoric rise of AIPAs is evident from the over 700 brands sold in the US as of 2014. Moreover, AIPAs currently constitute 30 percent of all craft beer sales in US restaurants and bars (and if you are a hop head, and need to geek out more on these type of stats, read about your obsession here). With the increasing competition of AIPA options and a growing consumer base that loves all things bitter, brewers have tinkered with their IPAs, by increasing the ABV, using different (read: aggressive) hops, increasing the IBU, and even expanding the hop repertoire to include other styles such as double (aka imperial) IPAs, American Black Ales, and Session IPAs.

Beer Doctor 2’s palette was tailored to enjoy the hoppy bitter flavors and aromas that are distinctive to most AIPAs. However, like a scene from zombie flick Return of the Living Dead (Brains!), obtaining that initial satisfaction for hops became a bit desperate with each new AIPA (OK, so eating brains is not like drinking beer, but you get the point). The IPAs were either overhopped (and thus out of balance) or too malty (and thus lack the bold hoppy finish). While this loss of (for me) the hoppy bitter taste might be a product of getting old (science and the NY Times tell us our senses dull with age), perhaps it’s merely the consequence of a wandering palate.

Even Beer Doctor 1’s palette has been transitioning. German hefewiezens (which literally translates as “yeast wheat”) are known for their unique banana and clove flavors and distinctive spice notes. However with the popularity of “gateway” wheat ales (by macrobreweries not to be named), hefes are commonly (and unfortunately) lumped together with American wheats (think hoppy) and Belgium witbiers (known for their citrus and coriander notes). And while US brewers are toying with the phenols and esters (to get those distinctive flavors), the mashups of different yeast strains, adjuncts, and hops, combined with a propensity for filtering this commonly unfiltered brew, have transformed wheat ales into a collection of styles that may be having a bit of an identity crisis.

So we ask ourselves – are beers losing their appeal? Are they becoming amalgamations of styles of overhopped or overmalted (or just overflavored) brews? We teetered on the answers being ”yes”… until we embraced our beer geography to provide our weary, wandering palates a delicious beer tasting adventure.

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The Beer Doctors Beer Tasting in Brussels

In May 2015, the Beer Doctors traveled to Belgium and hit the flights hard with an assortment of Belgium Dubbels, Tripels, Quadrupels, Flanders Reds as well as the Trappist ales. Now, we’ve tried these beer styles at home, but we were hoping they would taste better in Belgium. And more often than not, they did! Perhaps it was the ambiance of drinking outside with fellow Belgians (and English and French and I think one or two South Africans) while Jazz music lingered in the air. Or perhaps it was due to proximity of our locations to the breweries and therefore the inherent freshness of the beers, as most beers do NOT taste better with age. Most, but not all.

One afternoon, following a 13km (8 mile) bike ride through the streets of Brussels, we sauntered off for a beer tour (in actuality, we ran like lost sheep to the hole in the wall where our tour was already in progress). Our guide was a young man named Cedric, and he knew a lot about beer. We started at Au Bon Vieux Temps (To Good Old Times) drinking Orval, Westmalle and Chimay, but after downing Trappist ales, we wanted something “unique to Brussels”. Cedric had just the place in mind. After brisk 15 minute walk and a few reminders to not die (we think he was joking but at one point, he did lead us across 4 lanes of traffic followed by a set of train tracks), we greeted by a non-descript building displaying the name Brasserie Cantillon.

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Coolship at Cantillon Brewery

For those of you not familiar with the name Cantillon, it is considered THE brewery for Lambics. In other words, if you need a place to lose your Lambic virginity, this is the place to do it. Our tour of the facilities revealed an antiquated brewery, including a modest sized copper coolship. Admittedly this was the first coolship we had seen in person, so we were quite impressed (even if it wasn’t in use). Lambics start out like most beers, by making the sugary wort. But with lambics, the wort literally cools in the coolship (located the attic of this brewery) and is exposed to the air and the airborne yeast and bacteria found in Brussels. Viola! the process of spontaneous fermentation.

There is some debate whether lambics are an ale or a lager since both yeast strains can be found in lambics. In addition to these yeast strains are Brettanomyces, a yeast which gives the beer a fruity tasting flavor, and Lactobacillus, a bacterium which gives the beer its sour taste. Now, the yeast strains and bacteria responsible for lambics are only airborne during the months of October to March, and thus, no brewing while we were there in May.

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The Beer Doctors and Jean Van Roy, Cantillon Brewmaster

From the coolship, the beer is then stored in wooden casks and allowed to ferment for a year (or more). Since the amount and types of yeast and bacterium entering the wort can vary annually, so too can the taste of lambics. In order to assure a relatively consistent taste, master blenders blend new and old lambics together to form a type of blended lambic called Gueuze. There is no scientific formula for blending lambics from different years, just the knowledge and palate of the master blender. The mild sourness juxtaposed with the fruity sweetness of the raspberry (framboise) lambic we tried at Cantillon was a sort of funky divine awesomeness that our palates were craving. Beer geography is funky!

You can follow us at www.facebook.com/thebeerdoctors, as we travel the world sampling beer for our next book (a super amazing must-buy soon-to-be-bestseller Beer Atlas!), hitting the bookshelves October 2017.

This entry was written by guest bloggers Nancy Hoalst Pullen and Mark Patterson.

Nancy Hoalst Pullen: Always the storyteller, Nancy uses her life experiences to bring a richer and deeper understanding to all things geographic. Whether it is working in the equatorial rainforests of Malaysia, hitchhiking through Central America, or searching for the perfect pub experience in Europe, Nancy can always relate the geographies of these experiences to her students and make learning more relevant, contextual and memorable. Her most recent stories include the unique and sometimes overlooked geographies of beer. She has written about the sustainability trends of the brewing industry with fellow colleague Mark Patterson, and has learned from brewmasters, beer lovers and bar owners the quirky, comical, and even political stories that make beer a medium to learn about the intersections of people, traditions and places around the world. Nancy is an Associate Professor of Geography at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

Mark Patterson: As an academic geographer, Mark instills a sense of wanderlust in his students through stories of his travels. A six week backpacking trip through China in the late 1980s has inspired many subsequent trips with colleagues and students. Mark is able to combine his love of travel and beer, with his scholarly activities. What started out as a personal quest to sample local beers where and when he traveled (50+ countries) and lived (US, Canada, Indonesia and Italy), turned into a publication, The Geography of Beer (2014) , a course at his university, and a highly in demand study abroad program. When Mark is not overseas, he is typically at a pub planning his next trip. Mark is a Professor of Geography at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

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