Fermented with both regular top-fermenting Ale Yeast and Brett Yeast provides an opportunity to control the beer’s flavors, and It’s Alright is a successful, if not perfect attempt at an Infected Session beer, along the lines of Jolly Pumpkin’s low ABV selections.  It’s Alright pours a beautiful clear straw color and is crackly as soon as it hits the glass.  Their is a great, fruity, wild aroma immediately from the yeast that dominates the experience in a great way.  Like most beers dosed with Brettanomyces, which is capable of eating more of the remaining sugars in beer than normal brewer’s yeast (a property known as being ‘highly attenuative’), It’s Alright is very dry, and the body suffers a bit for this reason.  Just a touch more, or a bit of malt or caramel sweetness would really make this beer excellent.  This is more of a light Saison than a pale ale, but in any event, it’s an excellent, highly drinkable beer that I would drink a ton of if I were a millionaire.  Alas, as they say, It’s Alright.

While Belgium gets the credit for being the most exciting and enduring destination for American beer nerds, a smaller, quieter subset are insistent on their obsession with Germany’s beers, particularly their Lagers.  Having experienced a decent amount of these harder-to-find and less-hyped beers over the course of the last year, I can definitely say that the next beer trip I make to Europe will not exclude some of the more interesting regions in Germany’s panoply of amazing beer.

Beersel Lager is an interesting study in cross-pollination – Drie Fonteinen’s Armand Debelder admires the Lagers of Germany, claims the label, so he decided to have one contract brewed for him at the world-class De Proef facility, where many excellent brands from Belgium are brewed.  The results are revelatory, combining the refreshing drinkability of a German Lager with the depth of flavor of a Belgian Lambic.  Beersel Lager pours a touch more amber than the typical “yellow Lager” color, with a big fluffy-white Belgian head and tons of carbonation.  The nose has touches of breadiness you would expect from a Lager and a nice hit of tart, “wild” aromas from the Belgian yeast.  Sipping this beer breeds similar interesting combinations of flavor — a bit of lactic sourness, a nice bitter bite of hops, and a smooth, bready body in the middle.  An excellent sipping beer that unfortunately could only be stocked by someone much flusher with cash than I for a regular session beer, it comes closest to Jolly Pumpkin’s beers in pushing boundaries of beer geekdom into the realm of the Lawnmower beer.  Excellent product as usual and a lesson in how taking old ideas and combining them can produce astounding and surprising results.  Killer.

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.

So yeah, this is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, a sour Witbier, but one that is very nicely balanced, very dry, and very Champagne like.  This is not an easy thing to pull off and once again Jolly Pumpking doesn’t disappoint.  They manage to create a drinkable, even sessionable beer here with a less than 5% ABV and a truly refreshing finish.  Another Infected Session beer that you would be super stoked to have a six pack of at a barbecue or for a hang out day in the yard.  Glad to have grabbed a six pack of this at State Line Liquors on the way back from a trip down to Maryalnd, which by the way, lives up to its reputation for having great craft beers in what is quickly becoming an exciting part of the world for beer in general.

Avery has decided to keep the intensity a little bit more restrained with the Fifteen, which takes a wild yeast ale base and then adds black mission figs, hibiscus flowers and white pepper. Fifteen pours a nice darkish golden color with a fluffy white head which dissipates quickly and leaves a long trail behind it. The nose is very complex and remains complex throughout the course of the bottle. It has authentic wild Belgian yeast smells going on, with hay, ripe fruits, and other alternatively earthy, sweet, and sour notes coming through. It is a pleasure to sit around and smell this beer and then drinking it is a pleasant surprise. Avery has managed to create one of the first “Infected Session” beers I’ve ever had. It drinks really smooth, with a mild amount of funkiness on the palate, smoothed out by a bit of spicy dryness. This beer had the right kind of body to drink on a moderately warm summer day after work — it wasn’t too thick or syrupy, and the carbonation was at a perfect level for my palate.  I didn’t get much of the fig in there, but man, this beer is drinkable! At 8% ABV, I could definitely handle a few of these — and that’s no surprise considering I really enjoy a wide range of Avery’s beers. For me, this Infected Session was a revelation, and I’ll definitely be going back for more.