La Folie is a very significant beer in our country’s brewing history because it was the innoculation point, pun intended, for a streak of brewers who ended up taking the initial experiments of Fort Collins, Colorado via Roeselare, Belgium (New Belgium’s brewer, Peter Bouckaert, came from Rodenbach) to a variety of deep levels all over California and Beyond.  The barrels from the first batches of La Folie were used in other experiments by other brewers, reliving the Rodenbach tradition of sharing it’s resources with other brewers which was brutally severed by the corporate hand of Palm.  The beer itself has gone through the paces at this point, now in it’s second or third incarnation, taking it’s place amongst the “Lips of Faith” beers which serve to classify the “experimental,” including a few Sour or “Wild” beers.  Of course just as people say that Rodenbach and Orval have changedm they say La Folie has changed, but I wouldn’t know.

La Folie is an Oud Bruin or Flemish Brown style Sour Beer.  It’s one of my favorite styles because of how it incorporates the chocolate and earthy flavors of both good brown ales and good sour beers.  La Folie doesn’t dissapoint at all, pouring a deep dark brown with a very crackly head, immediately releasing lots of great barrel and sour aromas.  The chocolate is big in their too, as well as on the tongue where it is very assertive.  An awesome, desert like beer with a very intense sourness that is pushes the boundaries of sharpness but retains a very round flavor which comes with age.  This is a blended beer as well, taking old and new batches to find the right balance.  It’s awesome to have bombers of this in circulation, printed on like a regular American Style beer as opposed to being in a cork and cage.  I think I’m going to have to make some friends in Fort Collins so I can get a more regular supply of this and their other sour beers.  La Folie is a great example of a beer that really pays seeking out and more evidence of how huge and deep our beer culture is at this point, and it’s good to know that even a company with a message can produce awesome tasting beer.

Two excllent examples of this “wild” style have recently come out of New York State.  Captain Lawrence hit a homerun with its first entry into the Sour Beer canon with its much sought after Cuvee de Castelton, and Rosso E Morrone is a sort of “red wine” version of this style, aged in oak barrels and refermented with red grapes.  A very intriguing intermingling of the typical wine and beer flavors, Rosso E Morrone is easily in the running for most complex beer experience on planet earth, hitting the palate so many different ways that the small 375ml bottle is quite a journey to take.  Rosso comes in a wax capped small “split” style champagne bottle with a red wax dipped cap.  It pours a pretty hazy reddish brown with almost no head and a small amount of carbonation.The nose is very intense, a range of funky, fruity, and chemical/wood smells that keep changing as you sip.  Similarly, a treat of flavors await you as you sip, alternating between a decent malt presence, a nice tart fruitiness, and a crisp but round hint of bitterness.  An absolutely classic take on this “Belgian styled” beer which is really as much New York chutzpah as anything else — amazing.

Ithaca’s Brute has been an elusive brew to track down in the bottle — I tried it about a year ago in Cooperstown at the Ommegang festival, and rumors of the bottle being “brewery only” persisted until recently some bottles showed up at Bierkraft.  Score.  Brute pours a bright golden color with a nice big head that dissipates quickly, and a nice heavy amount of carbonation.  Brute is the “traditional” Champagne to Rosso’s sparkling Shiraz, dryer, a bit more biting, and hitting the brighter part of the fruit spectrum (white grapes, peaches) as opposed to the darker fruits that Rosso has to offer (plums, red grapes, etc.).  Brute is a touch more one-dimensional than Rosso, although it is still quite a complex sipper.  Brute has more of a hop presence both in the nose and on the palate, with an effervescent mouthfeel that keeps the heavy acidity from being overbearing.

As good as anything being produced by most American brewers who dare to step into the sour beer fray, these two New York State examples make me proud to be a resident and advocate for local beer — keep the explorations coming!

Recently someone sacked our infamous work beer fridge while we were away and replaced some excellent West Coast beers of t-bones with “Whole Foods Beers,” that is, beers of respectable provenance but not necessarily high quality. Amongst the gems such as Avery’s “The Czar” and Stone’s “Ruination” was a Rogue beer I hadn’t tried — the Juniper Pale Ale.

It poured a very thin looking yellowish gold that got me excited for something drinkable. I was disappointed by the complete lack of Juniper flavor or aroma, and even more let down by its biting dryness — without any body to back it. No malt character, a completely clean aroma profile, and nothing else to be said for it. Vaguely bitter, vaguely beer, barely interesting.

Beer on Mars. by mrb

Brewery Ommegang is many things — a beautiful brewhouse on a former hop farm, the westernmost outpost of the Duvel Moortgat empire, host of the anual Belgium Comes to Cooperstown festival, and one of the staunchest upholders of traditional Belgian brewing anywhere in the world.  Ommegang is also one of the most widely distributed American Craft Breweries — it’s everywhere.  They make some excellent beers and some others that are a bit tame for my tastes, but after my experience with Bier De Mars, I think I’m going to go back and give them all another fair shake — it’s been a while.

Bier De Mars is a beautifully dry, low ABV reddish beer in approximately the Biere de Garde style.  Biere de Garde is a style akin to Saison – not wholly well defined, but recognizable when you see one.  Bier De Mars has the additional flavor and aroma profile which is contributed by the use of Brettanomyces Yeast, which gives an excellent musky aroma and a slight tartness on the palate.  This beer pours with a big, crackling frothy white head that releases a great deal of Brett aromas and a nice hint of malt as well — there is a nice amount of body up front, but as any good Belgian beer does, it finishes very dry.  Quite a digestible, sessionable beer that controls the use of Brett in an excellent way.  A bottle conditioned, corked and caged bottle, I think this would be a good beer to try and age — the character could really develop over time.  This beer definitely gives any other “Infected Sessions” beers (logo by Maya coming soon) a run for their money, and knowing that at certain times of the year I can get a champagne bottle full of this stuff for under $20 (in some cases, much less) is just awesome. For a brewery on the scale of Ommegang to produce a beer like this is not only gutsy, it shows a hell of a lot of just plain skill.  Score another one for New York, and embrace the wild yeast — let this infect your next session, you won’t be sorry.