Bruery Orchard White - Bite The Farm

I posted this originally during the Craft Beer Conference week, but, well… I had another glass of Orchard White last night and it’s so gosh darned tasty and whatnot, I feel the need to move it up to the top of the blog. And so, without further ado…

So, it’s Craft Beer Conference week here in lovely Boston, which means we’re flooded with brewers in town. Good, good stuff. We’ve been bar-hopping all week, trying out the newest brews and this that and the third. Everywhere we go, it’s been on lips: The Bruery finally has MA representation.

The Bruery’s Orchard White is often cited as the number one beer coming out of the States today (depending on who you ask, of course - some people might tell you that distinction belongs to Budweiser). It’s a witbier, a style most are familiar with through Blue Moon, or Sam White, or some other such you find people tossing citrus rings into at bars. Derived from the Belgian word for white, these brews are so-called because, while they’re not perfectly white, they’re much, much lighter than the palest pale ales. Brewed with spices, they blast the tongue with citrus and the like.

But this Orchard White, it’s something different. First of all, there’s a bit of lavender in the recipe, and you can taste it immediately. Second, it’s bottle fermented and unfilitered, like most in the style, but somehow comes out wearing those characteristics on its sleeve. Where lots of witbiers can come out tasting manufactured, this Bruery brew tastes like a Belgian Saison Farmhouse. Jeff put it best: it’s like taking a bite out of the Belgian farming countryside. And that’s good. It’s very good. Every sip is chewy, different from the last. If you want a beer experience unlike any other you’ll find in an American Witbier, pick this up. It’s only 10 bucks for a full 750 mL. You won’t be disappointed.

dJp

Tags: American beer, BRAND NEW, California, Farmhouse, Orchard White, The Bruery, white beer, witbier
Category: Beer Reviews, The Beer Blog | Comments (0)

Foret Saison - Con Pasta? Dios Mios!

I really wish I could somehow pull off the inverted question marks and exclamation points in that heading - I can’t. The ha-ha hilarious Spanish-tinged headline is a result of my fiance, who’s a Spanish teacher and currently pacing back and forth behind me working through her quiz for manana. Yup.

Anyway, we just finished dinner. She had a plate of… well, I’d rather not describe the plate, but suffice it to say she’s going to get fitted for wedding dresses this weekend and so she’s following some diet for women going to get fitted for wedding dresses (ridiculous, says me, seeing as to how she’s in ten-million-times better shape than anyone I know, but I’ve learned not to argue on the point). Me? Having a strange desire to actually taste my food, I cooked up the only dish I’m capable of not screwing up. I had pasta with red sauce.

The problem being: before I decided on pasta (or my limited abilities decided for me), I had uncorked a bottle of Foret Saison. No implicit problem with the Foret. Actually, it’s pretty cool. A wholly organic ale out of Belgium by the co. that gives us Saison Dupont, it’s a fairly crisp farmhouse ale with everything you could want out of the style. The thing is… well, I’d rather have it with a nice sharp cheese or something along those lines.

But I guess that’s just convention talking. Because as it played out, the Foret was AMAZING with the pasta. I don’t know, it might have been a situational thing, a perfect storm of awesomeness (dig the irony there): a beautiful night, my beautiful fiance, a home-cooked meal (!)… but the crisp citrus slipped in under the pasta sauce and somehow seemed to hit the noodles first. It transformed every bite into an experience that felt like molding a clay pot… the food on my tongue was this wild mush of complex flavors that built to a different shape on my tongue with every bite.

Again, maybe it was just situational. Maybe tomorrow, the same pairing would taste terrible. But it just goes to show you… trust your own pallete more than any book or piece of “sage” advice. Por supuesto! (sorry…) (that means “of course”, by the way, which makes no sense there)

dJp

Tags: Belgian, Farmhouse, Foret, Saison
Category: The Beer Blog | Comments (0)