Back in July, Seattle’s Elysian Brewing announced a partnership with Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing. The deal allowed Elysian to make bigger batches of their flagship beers for new markets in California and New York while giving New Belgium the chance to brew smaller batches of experimental beers at Elysian’s facilities in Seattle. As we begin 2009, local beer enthusiasts are seeing the first of these experimental beers at Elysian brewpubs.
Last night, I found two new NB/Elysian collaborations on tap at Elysian Capitol Hill and both were described as Belgian-style sour beers. My first thought was “La Folie and Le Terroir…holy crap, these sour beers are gonna be amazing.” I knew I had to try both, but first I couldn’t resist having a pint of the Dry-Hopped Immortal IPA. Man, was that good. I like the Immortal okay, but the dry-hopped version is much better. It had more of a hop kick than the regular version. I say let this become the everyday Immortal.
On to the sour beers. The first one I had was Wout Bier (pictured above), a Belgian sour golden ale. For the beer tech geeks out there, it’s made with 100% pale malt, US Magnum hops, White Labs #507 Belgian yeast and it’s doctored with two kinds of Lactobacillus (Amylovorus and Delbrueckii). Wout is the first NB/Elysian collaboration and it’s named for NB Brewmaster Peter Bouckaert’s son. If you’re a sour beer freak and really love the intense tartness of those beers, this one might be a bit of a letdown. It’s a good beer, light and citrusy with a dry finish…but it doesn’t really deliver on the sour.
The second beer was Idefix, a Belgian sour persimmon ale. This one was made with curry leaves in the boil and pureed persimmon in the fermenter. It was soured with Lactobacillus Amylovorus and fermented with Brettanomyces. When I saw they used Brett, I figured it must be much tarter than the Wout. While it did have more sourness than that one, it still wasn’t what I was expecting. The beer reminded me of a milder, less acidic Flanders Red. As with the Wout, it was a good beer and I enjoyed it, but I was hoping for something in the sour ballpark of La Folie or Le Terroir.
My own (maybe unrealistic) expectations aside, Seattle beer lovers should get to Elysian and try these beers. I’d especially recommend them to people who don’t have much experience with sour beers and are interested but skeptical. These could be gateway sours that might be the first step toward someday appreciating the most hardcore gueuzes. It was cool to finally see the first collaborations between New Belgium and Elysian and I look forward to tasting what comes next.
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