Beers from the Bretts festival

As I wrote in the previous entry, this is fully dedicated to describe everything I smelled and tasted in the festival "Carnivale Brettanomyces en andere wilde dieren". I will describe them in the order I tested them, and I will give all the data I can about them. I will try to be wuick, as I know this was what you were really waiting for...

-De Eem (Xtreem English IPA & lambic). Tap at In de Wildeman, 5,2%. First beer, first surprise. I didn't know these sour beers, and I was not thinking about finding these smells and flavours.  This one, was golden and muddy, with medium white foam. Quite sour smell, and about flavour, I could say it was a hoppy cyder. It was cold when I arrived and with the hot day we had, it was perfect and refreshing.

-Oersoep (Brettanosaurus Sauvin IPA). Tap at de Prael, 5%. Another big surprise, this one for good. I was waiting more sourness, but this beer was orange quite opaque, with white hard foam. Tropical smell, like green mango, and a bit of Brett, but very herbal. Flavour, almost no malts, tropical hop had erased them, and the same small sour as in the nose. In my opinion, one of the champions of the event.

-Oersoep (In vitro IPA). Tap at de Prael, 5%. This one was a bit more red, amber and dirty with lasting white cream. In the nose was more like an English IPA, soft hop and some malts, and the flavour was hop, grass, and at the end something between toasted and sweet very nice.

-Rooie Dop (Funky Acid cheeks). Taste from bottle at Bierkoning, 5%. This grape lambis, golden and with low foam, has a very very sour aroma, like a white wine, and about the flavour, nothing like hop or malts, only sourness.

-Ramsgate brewery (East KEnt IPA), taste from bottle at Bierkoning, 6,5%. 100% Kent hops (Brittish local hops for a british craft beer). Amber very clean, very low on foam. Smooth malty aroma with some hops in the end, and the flavour, cereal with a very light hop, but very long in the end.

-Boon (Marriage Parfait Geuze). Grape lambic refermented for 24 months in barrels. Taste from bottle at Bierkoning. Light golden colour, a bit dirty, and a lot of foam, but very short in time. Sweet sour aroma, like a good white wine, and in the mouth it felt as champagne, very worked.

-Boon (Kriek Boon) Cherry lambic, taste from bottle at Bierkoning. It seemed as red wine, transparent, low on cream. Sweet and fruity smell, but about the flavour, it was a bit more sour than I expected.

-The Monarchy (Strong sour ale). Taste from bottle at Bierkoning, 10%. A sour porter with high alcoholic percentage, brown very clean in the glass with some golden foam. Toasted aroma low in sourness, and in the mouth it was as a porter a bit acid, with some sweet points in the end.

-Jopen (Lacto Koyt Lambicus) Taste from bottle at Bierkoning. Lambic porter aged in Bourbon barrels for 24 months. Opaque brown, golden cream quite long in time. Sour aroma to be a black beer, and a quite toasted flavour, with sour points. You could notice perfectly lactobacilus, but not any hop or bourbon.

-Klein Puimpje (Old barley Brett special) taste from bottle at Bierkoning, Barley wine with Bretts, 10,5%. Amber, quite clean colour and a lot of light golden foam. Bitter aroma, quite malty. A lot of malty flavour also, quite toasted, but low on hops and quite lower in Brett sourness.

HOMEBREWERS

And now, the three homebrewed beers I could taste:

-De kromme Haring (Twisted Kipper) Tap at de Prael, 6,7%. 50 IBUs, with Citra, Centennial and Chinook as hops. Golden quite orange colour, low on foam but very hard. Fruity aroma, very sweet, tropical, fresh. More sweetness in the mouth, and a bit of light toasted malts. Almost nothing of Bretts, and in my opinion, the other winner of the event.

-Zevende Hemel (Bripa) Bottle at de Prael. Red IPA with Bretts as second fermentation, 7,5%. Cascade, Willamette and Simcoe. Dark amber coloured, muddy, with a lot of light golden cream. Sour hoppy smell, and quite strong hooppy taste, sourness and quite hard toasted at the end.

-Zevende Hemel (Porter) Bottle at de Prael, 8,1%. Second fermentation with Bretts, black opaque colour, and strong foam, quite more like a stout rather than a porter. Strong toasted aroma, like chocolate, some coffee, and strong porter flavour with and unusual acid ending.

And to finish this chapter of homebrewers, I would like to thank Jan, from Bierkoning, who let me take one of each Zevende Hemel bottles. This let me show them to a couple of friends who enjoyed tasteing them in a barbecue a bit after the festival, and now, both bottles have a very special place in my beer bottles collection.

And this was all about the Bretts festival, see you soon!

Carnivale Brettanomyces en andere wilde dieren

Brettanomyces carnival and other wild animals

On the past days that were 5 and 6 of July, we were celebrating a beer festival in the old historic centre of Amsterdam, that will be also useful to do the first of the many I hope to write here, let's go!

The festival, in my opinion, was more like a meeting among some professionals of the beer world here in Amsterdam, but even being so small, it had a lot of assistance, that enjoyed a lot there. As the name stated, it was nearly fully dedicated to "Brettanomyces" yeast, so the result were a lot of sour beers, very common here in summer. The place, several important places in the beer culture, in the centre of the Netherlands capital.

They were:

1:De Bierkoning (Paleisstaat 125). Beer shop, right next to the Real Palace at Dam Square, with a looooooooooooooooot of varieties of bottled beer.

2:Brouwerij de Prael proeflokaal (Oudezijs Armsteeg 26) Beer pub in the Red Light District, with homemade beer they do around the corner

3:Bierproeflokaal In de Wildeman (Kolksteeg 3) Beer pub just two minutes away from Dam Square or Central Station, with several taps and also a wide range of bottled beer.

4:The Beertemple (Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 250) Just around the corner of Bierkoning, beer pub with many taps and and many bottled, mainly from US.

The further distance could be ten minutes maximun from Beertemple and De Prael, all very close. This route allowed also food for every budget, from restaurants to sandwiches from the supermarket, and also hotels and the rest of things you would need to just enjoy beer. About prices, the tasting was 1,5E a little glass, I also tasted a couple of tube glasses for 3E, and also two special bottles from Bierkoning that were 7E both. The fact that it was splited among several places also was good to take good breathes between beer and beer, because if you only drink beer, at the third litter you don't taste or anything...

I will give a short look at the program now:

The program was three black and white sheets, folded and stapled. With this few luxury you had in your hand everything you needed for the festival. First page, simple but worked introduction for the festival, with the dates. Second page, the map and addresses. From third to the Sixth all the beers(I counted 48 but I'm sure I'm forgetting any of them) with a brief introduction (Some shorter than I thought), the format you would find it and where in the event. Seven and Eight pages was for the schedule, and nine and ten for an explanation of the Talks, presentations and masterclasses.

About the activities, there were plenty of variety if we look at the festival size and the places. The "basics" for all the day were new season beers at Prael and De Wildeman, from 12:00 to 23:00. Also a lambic presentation from Frank Boon (Marriage parfait Geuze, Boon Kriek...), mixed with another tasting on Friday at Bierkoning. !,5E each beer, and you had to buy the tickets before in a van parked outside the shop.  Between beer and beer, you could talk with the staff from Bierkoning Frak Boon, people from Brouwerij 'It and other local breweries. This show was repeated on Saturday at In de Wildeman. Also Oersoep guys showed a couple of IPAs on Friday at Prael and on Saturday at Bierkoning.

There were also three masterclasses:

-Robert Pattinson talked about Brettanomyces in the British culture.

-H. Ertie talked about Belgian lambics

-Oscar Moerman talked about spontaneus fermentation in lambics

I wanted to go to the first (Was the only one in English), and the other ones were in Dutch, so I didn't go and I don't know if they were interesting or not.

And last thing about activities:

A homebrewer presentation at De Prael on Saturday evening. Three homebrewers brought their beers to this pub, and I realyly would define it as a meeting with homemade beer that tasted as all the care put on it by the brewer. There you could find and IPA and a Farmhouse by De Kromme Haring, a porter and a red IPA from Zevende Hemel, and some lambics from Toon van den Broek.

This was all about the fest and the activities, and just to try to avoid making too long entries, I will describe the beers in the next one. I hope you liked it, and that you repeat!

See you next time, beer lovers!