Nothing like starting the day off with a strong Belgian beer.

At least that’s what we said as I and my photographer friend Mark Roberts rolled up to the Summit Brewery at 7:00 AM yesterday morning. Hey, the Founding Fathers started the day with a draught of strong beer or cider, why shouldn’t we. For the record, the thought was also uttered that we may have lost our minds.

But roll up we did, because bright and early on Tuesday morning was the first packaging run for the newest Unchained Series beer, Belgian Style Golden Ale, which is set for official release next week. Brewed with Belgian pilsner malt, Belgian candi sugar, Czech Saaz and Styrian Goldings hops, it clocks in officially at 8.6% ABV (it might actually be a bit stronger than that…sshhhh), making it the strongest beer ever to come out of Summit. It’s a nice breakfast beer.

After watching the first bottles roll off the line to be packed for shipment later that day, we headed out to the hospitality room for a bit of tasting. A sixpack emerged still covered in foam from bottling. Caps were popped, samples were poured, cheers were offered, and sipping ensued. It’s a shame brewer Eric Harper, the man responsible for this golden elixir, had not yet arrived. But I will confess to a certain smug satisfaction at having tasted the finished product before even he did.

Harper did come in at about 7:30 and joined us at the bar for a chat. “I’m excited to have this come out.” he said. “It’s a little weird. It’s been in the fermenter for over six weeks. Up until the time we filtered it, it had more yeast in suspension than even the Hefeweizen does. It really changes the character when you take all that out. Plus when you taste it out of the fermenter you’re drinking kind of yeasty, flat beer. It’s a lot nicer when it’s finished.”

Harper’s choice of style for his Unchained Series beer was influenced by his own tastes. “I like drinking Belgian style beers. If I go out I order a Summit or two, but I really gravitate toward Belgian stuff. Making a Belgian also gave him an opportunity to experiment. “Belgians are particularly creative in their brewing method. They don’t have any limits. Bringing in the candi syrup was fun. We haven’t used anything like that here at Summit, or any kind of adjunct for that matter.”

Asked if he was inspired by a particular Belgian beer, Harper responded, “I wasn’t aiming for a particular beer. We tasted a couple of them around the bar and took things from here and there. I liked the fruity and estery characteristics. We tasted some that were pretty phenolic and hot from the high heat fermentation. I wanted to avoid that.”

Belgian Style Golden Ale will be the first of the Unchained Series beers to be released in a cask conditioned version. According to Harper, “Damian racked some casks of this awhile ago and they have been sitting in the cooler. He’ll re-rack them again to get some of the yeast out. He’s talked about priming with the candi syrup and adding a lot more Stryian Goldings.” Sounds tasty.

Harper has a full week of launch events ahead of him. Unchained #4 will be celebrated at multiple locations every night next week. You can check here for the full listing of events.

But enough chit chat. How’s the beer taste? Here’s my notes:

Belgian Style Golden Ale
Summit Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota
Style: Belgian Strong Golden Ale
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Pronounced fruitiness, pear, candied peaches, hints of strawberry. Pepper and licorice. Sweet pilsner malt and sugary Belgian “cotton candy.” Alcohol is apparent.

Appearance: Deep golden color and crystal clear. Raised a substantial, fluffy, and persistent white head.

Flavor: Begins with sweet pilsner malt that extends through to the finish. Alcohol is prominent, particularly at the end, and is accentuated by the dry finish. It’s warming all the way down, but stops just short of hot. Loads of fruit, orange citrus, candied peach, and pears. These increased and developed complexity halfway through the glass as the beer warmed. Peppery and floral hops character balance the sweetness. Moderate bitterness is accentuated by a dry finish. Belgian yeast character remains subdued, a background of banana and “cotton candy.” This beer became much more delicate and complex as it warmed in my glass.

Mouthfeel: High attenuation makes this a medium body beer. High carbonation. Creamy and mouth-filling. Alcohol warming is high.

Overall Impression: Another fine beer from the Unchained Series. Like many American versions of Belgian styles, it lacks some of the subtle complexity and finesse of the best Belgian examples, but is still a worthy effort. The alcohol is a more prominent than I would prefer, but the fruit notes are lovely. It developed in delicacy and depth as it warmed in my glass. I’m drinking this on my patio on a humid 93° evening and it is completely refreshing.

Brewery photos by Mark Roberts.

Spring arrived early this year. We lived through the first snowless March since records have been kept and April has been even better. Warmer weather and longer days call for a shift away from the heavy, dark beers of winter. Spring means lighter beers, but beers with enough body to tackle the lingering night time chill. Spring is when I begin to crave the bitter American Pale Ales, their citrusy hops flavor giving a bracing wake-up call to the senses. The traditional old-world beers of spring, German maibock and French biére de garde, have sturdy malt backbones supporting spicy hops and yeast character, contrasting flavors to match the seasonal temperature swings. Several of these springtime beer styles are crafted here in the metro by our great local brewers.

Minnesotans love hops, the source of bitterness in beer, and there are plenty of locally produced bitter brews to satisfy these springtime cravings. The most balanced of these is Sweet Child of Vine, the debut India pale ale (IPA) from newcomers Fulton Beer. Only available on draft, the floral hops flavor, moderate bitterness, and balancing caramel malt make this one of the easier drinking versions of the style. More bitter but still balanced, Lift Bridge Brewery’s Crosscut Pale Ale features subtle citrus notes from abundant Cascade hops and grapefruit zest added to the brew. St. Paul’s Flat Earth Brewing calls its Northwest Passage IPA the “bitterest beer in Minnesota.” A step up the ladder in bitterness, body, and alcohol content, Northwest Passage is bracing enough to snap one out of winter hibernation, but has enough warmth and comforting caramel to take the bite out of those sudden springtime temperature drops. Topping the list for hops intensity is Abrasive Ale (formerly 16 Grit), the double IPA from Surly Brewing Company. This nearly 9% alcohol bruiser of a beer is aptly named. The aggressive bitterness gives way to massive citrusy hops flavor that is supported by full-bodied sweet, grainy malt. This is one for hops lovers. Surly is making Abrasive Ale available in cans this year for the first time. The release date was April 12^th, but don’t tarry, this one won’t last long.

For the traditional spring beers look no further than St. Paul for Summit Maibock and Flat Earth Ovni Ale biére de garde. Bavarians still celebrate the annual May release of maibock, a hoppier, lighter-colored version of the malty-rich bock style. Summit’s version is appropriately malt forward with grainy sweetness and a quiet toasty background. The sweetness is balanced by moderate bitterness and floral hops flavor.  Biére de garde, a traditional farmhouse ale from Northern France, was originally brewed in early spring and cold-cellared for consumption by farmhands as the weather warmed. Ovni Ale is another beer for malt lovers. On the sweet side for the style, it features rich caramel malt and hints of chocolate with low bitterness and only the lightest touch of spicy hops flavor.

The long-term forecast looks good, so grab one of these great local beers and celebrate spring’s return before summer creeps in.

Summit EPA took GOLD in the Classic English Style Pale Ale category of the World Beer Cup tonight. Congratulations!

In the third of three events held on consecutive nights at various locations around the Twin Cities, Summit Brewing Company celebrated the release of India Rye Ale, the newest of the Unchained Series beers last Friday at Tracy’s Saloon in Seward. Summit Founder Mark Stutrud and India Rye Ale brewer Mike Lundell were on hand along with a small coterie of other Summit representatives. Tracy’s offered two-for-one Summit pints and $4 house-cured Tasso ham sandwiches all night long and a lucky few got to partake of a delicious six-course tasting menu paired with Summit beers prepared by Chef Joseph Madigow and Sous Chefs Robyn Carley and Sean McDonald. It was a loud night at Tracy’s and everyone seemed to be having a good time. I observed several pints of the new beer being consumed.

There was a loose theme of rye and cured meat running through the six-course tasting menu, appropriate for the release of the new rye ale. The variety and complexity of the menu was far more than I expected from Tracy’s, which I usually associate with good bar food. The best dishes and most successful pairings in my view were the first two. The meal started with a bouillabaisse crudo of bluenose and opah fish on rye flatbread with a rouille sauce. Paired with India Rye Ale, the flatbread was a perfect complement to the rye toast flavors in the beer while the spicy sauce and the light meatiness of the fish added contrasting flavors and textures. The second course offered rabbit meatballs with eggplant vermicelli in a roasted red pepper vinaigrette paired with Summit Pilsner. The meatballs were a bit tough, but the eggplant was outstanding and paired nicely with the pilsner.

The next three courses included a soup trio that was the most interesting presentation of the night, a potato stuffed ham hock on a bed of rye with a rich parsley and garlic butter sauce, and a baked oyster topped with a Summit IPA Sabayon. These were paired with Summit Horizon Red Ale. An octopus carbonade made with Summit Pilsner was the hit of the soup trio, with little bacon-like bits of grilled octopus floating in a smokey, Dijon mustard flavored broth that smacked of cured meat. It was tasty, but also salty, a trend that continued for the rest of the meal. While I expected the ham hock to be salty, the saltiness of the sabayon on the oyster overpowered the sweetness of the oyster meat and the tarragon in the sauce. I found myself craving a Summit IPA to accompany these dishes.

A most intriguing pre-desert plate consisted of tiny bites of house-cured pork fatback and aspic with a streak of tart cranberry sauce. The aspic had a nicely sweet floral green tea flavor and the combination of the fatback with the cranberry sauce was to die for. Summit Great Northern Porter ended the meal paired with a rye éclair filled with hazelnut cream and topped with a porter ganache.

Following the dinner I led a Q&A session with Mike Lundell and Mark Stutrud. It was interesting to me to learn just how brewer-centered the Unchained Series is. It originated from a suggestion by the brewers and they have total control over it, with neither Stutrud nor the sales department having veto power over the beers that they create. As Lundell said of the process, “I was totally on my own.” Lundell has been working at Summit for thirteen years. He started as a bottler and worked his way up to brewer. He reported that he spent a lot of time tasting ingredients during the recipe formulation process, but said, “In the end I really didn’t know what it was going to taste like. I tasted it every couple days and then all of a sudden at about six weeks I tasted brown sugar. I ran around telling everyone, ‘I taste brown sugar. I taste molasses.’” In answer to the question “why rye?” he answered, “Rye not?” Lundell said that he is thrilled to have his beer celebrated at these release events, but gestured to those in attendance as he added, “It’s not really my beer. It’s all of theirs. I made it for all of them.”

[EDIT] Also check out Alli Wade’s write-up of the event on the Heavy Table with additional photos and menu descriptions.

Summit Brewing Company of St. Paul gave a sneak preview last night of the second beer in their Unchained Series. For those who don’t know, the Unchained Series beers are intended to showcase the skills of individual brewers at Summit. The brewer has complete control, shepherding their beer through the process from recipe formulation to packaging. These beers aren’t the result of the brewmaster’s imagination, they are created by the folks who actually make the beer.

The second beer in the series, a Scottish 90/- brewed with heather, is the creation of brewer Eric Blomquist. The odd symbol in the name of this beer is the old sign for shilling. Back in the day in the UK, beers were taxed based upon their strength. In the case of Scottish beers there were 60/-, 70/-, 80/- and 90/-, beers. These tax designations eventually just stuck as the colloquial name for each beer. Scottish ales evolved as malt centered beers featuring sweet caramel flavors and hints of roast. This was in part because hops cannot be grown in Scotland. It is also due to the fact that the English taxed the hops that Scottish brewers imported. Fewer hops meant less expense to the brewer and sweeter more malt focused beers. The heather in this beer is a traditional ingredient for Scottish ales. In the days before hops became widely used, brewers used a number of herbs, heather among them, to bitter their beers.

Here’s my notes:

90/- Scottish Style Ale
Summit Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota
Style: Strong Scotch Ale
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Toasted pumpernickel bread with caramel sweetness. Light coffee roast. Notes of brown sugar and raisins.

Appearance: Moderate and creamy off-white head with good persistence. Maintained a film on the surface. Deep ruby/mahogany and crystal clear.

Flavor: Slanted to sweet malt, but balanced with more bitterness than I expected. The hops have a spicy/herbal character that melds with and accentuates the intense herbal flavors of the heather. Together with the sweet caramel and brown sugar malt it reminds me of spiced molasses cookies or maybe the horehound stick candy that I ate as a kid. The same toasted bread flavors from the aroma carry over to the flavor. Hints of dark fruits and orange. The finish is crisp and lingers on roasted malt and molasses.

Mouthfeel: Medium body with medium carbonation. Smooth creaminess.

Overall Impression: The folks at Summit are stepping up their game with these Unchained Series Beers. Like the Kölsch, this one is really well made. The bready, roasted, and caramel malt flavors are all well articulated. It’s on the sweet side, as it should be for the style, but the level of bittering balances it nicely, keeping it from becoming cloying. The heather gives it additional layers of interest. Not overly strong, but still works as a snifter sipper.

Saturday was Autumn Brew Review. At least half a million people turned out at parking lot of the historic Grain Belt Brewery in Minneapolis. Okay, so maybe there weren’t quite that many, but there were a bunch of people there. The sold out annual event was very well attended with beer lovers given the opportunity to taste the wares of 57 different breweries both local and national. Construction in the field approaching the river made the festival confines feel much more confined than last year and hot muggy weather made the compact crowds a bit hard to take by the end, at least for me. However, food lines never reached the epic lengths that they did last year, which was a definite improvement. I think the line at the Surly Brewing booth was the longest that I saw anywhere all day.

It was a good day for sour beers in my view and so-so day for pale ale and IPA. The first three of my top five beers were sour beers, with funky wild brews on offering from a number of brewers including Surly, Herkimer, Ommegang, Two Brothers, Victory, Great Waters, and others. As for the huge numbers of pale ales and IPAs on offer, nothing really stood out. With so many of these out there, brewers have to do something really special to rise above the crowd. In this category I found myself writing over and over again, “yet another hoppy IPA.” I think I’m just kind of over it.

Because of a tie for the top beer, my top five picks are really my top six picks. Starting at the bottom and working up, my number five beer was Summit German Style Kölsch. This is just a fantastic beer. Light and delicate, bready and subtly bitter, it provided me a blissful retreat at the end of the day when my palate had been smashed by the excesses of big, bitter, and barrel-aged. Remarkably its flavors still held their own. My number four was Odin Baltic Porter from Town Hall. This was a wonderfully rich and chocolaty porter with luscious caramel undertones and assertive herbal/grassy hop flavors and bitterness. Continuing up the list, my number three pick was Chestnut Hill from Lift Bridge Brewery. A big Nut Brown Ale, this beer had a creamy nutty and caramel malt profile nicely balanced by spicy/herbal hop bitterness and flavor. Rich but drinkable, Chestnut Hill would make a nice session beer even at 7% ABV. In the number two slot I put Thermo Refur from Furthermore Beer. This was an aged version of the beer they released last winter. The further aging has done it some good. This beer has developed a wonderful wild yeast funk; not sour, but redolent of earth, leather and barnyard. It is bone dry, but not lacking in body. I even think I tasted the beets.

My two top picks for this year were Rouge from Brewery Ommegang and Gose from the Herkimer Brewpub. Rouge is a Grand Cru style Flemish red ale that is a collaboration between Brewery Ommegang and Brouwerij Bockor in Belgium. It was spontaneously fermented and aged for 18 months in oak tuns. The result is a beautifully sour and barnyard beer with loads of cherry and berry flavors. While the acidity is strong, there remains a balancing malt sweetness that keeps it from being over the top. Beautiful. The real surprise of the festival for me was the Gose from Herkimer Brewpub. Gose is a rare North German ale style from the city of Leipzig, one of the few surviving representatives of the “white” beers that were once brewed all over northern Europe. A sour wheat beer flavored with coriander and sea salt, Gose is unique. Only one or two breweries in Leipzig still produce it and I know of only one that is available in the US. The Herkimer example was a nice one. Light and refreshing, tart but not overly sour, with a roundness of body and subtle saltiness from the addition of sea salt, I went back for this one three times during the day.

Other beers that seem worthy of mention but didn’t make my top five list include New Belgium Hoptober, Schell’s Roggenbier, Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ and Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Extra from Lagunitas (the only pale ales that managed to stand out from the crowd), Surly Brett, Avery Collaboration Tripel, and Vine Park English Premium Bitter. All in all it was a great event with a lot of great beers to sample. Can’t wait for Winterfest.

The folks at Summit Brewing in St. Paul have been busy this year. After not releasing any new beers for many years, they have released two this year with another on the way. The first was Horizon Red Ale, released in April. This week they are rolling out the first of their Unchained Series, a traditional German Style Kölsch. According to their press release we can look forward to the next beer in this series sometime in late fall.

I’m excited about the Unchained Series, which allows Summit’s brewers an opportunity to spread their wings and explore. According to the press release, “the inspiration for the series was to give the team of six full time brewers a chance to show off their skills and creativity and to have a little fun in the process. Each brewer will have an opportunity to choose their own beer style and manage the process from start to finish, from research and recipe development all the way to tasting the beer in the final stages to determine proper conditioning and filtration for the ideal flavor and aroma profile.” Not intended as license for brewers to get wild and crazy, the Unchained Series offers them the opportunity to explore seldom brewed styles using traditional methods.

The first in the Series is a Kölsch from brewer Mike “the Miz” Miziorko. The Kölsch style is an appellation protected by the Kölsch Konvention and use of the name is restricted to a few breweries in Cologne, Germany. It is one of the few remaining German ale styles, a holdover from the time before lager beers swept Germany and later the rest of the world. However, colder fermentation temperatures and a period of cold conditioning gives Kölsch a very lager-like character. Like a more delicate and slightly fruity Pilsner, it is typically a yellow to gold colored beer filtered to brilliant clarity. It’s light bodied and features a balance of pilsner malt and spicy European hops with a well attenuated dry finish. Kölsch is an easy-drinking and refreshingly light beer for summer. The Summit version is brewed with all imported ingredients using “traditional mashing and brewing procedures” that I’m told included a multi-step mash.

Here’s my notes:

German Style Kölsch
Summit Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota
Style: Kölsch
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Soft bready malt with slight DMS corny character of pilsner malt. Reminds me of the crust on a loaf of fresh-baked white bread. Malt is the centerpiece of the aroma with only the slightest hint of herbal hops and stone fruits. Simple and delicate, but still delightful.
Appearance: Deep golden and crystal clear. Moderate creamy white head that dissipated quickly leaving lace on the glass and a film on the surface of the beer. Nice to look at.
Flavor: Starts with a kick of bitterness and peppery and herbal hop flavors until balancing bready malt moves in. Well balanced between malt and hops. A bit of sweetness and the same light corny character from the aroma give some complexity to the malt. Mid palate brings very subtle stone fruit. The finish is dry with a lingering hop spice and light residual sweetness.
Mouthfeel: Light body. Crisp and clean like a lager. Medium carbonation.
Overall Impression: Light, delicate, crisp, balanced. This beer is everything a Kölsch should be. The bready malt has depth and reminds me of the great Helles beers of Munich. In the sea of überhopped, barrel-aged, high alcohol monster beers Summit Kölsch is a welcome reminder of the pleasures of simplicity and balance in beer. Nicely done.

I had the opportunity to sample a bit of Summit Horizon Red Ale the other day at an undisclosed location. For anyone who does not yet know, Horizon Red a new year-round beer that Summit is officially releasing in bars on April 16th. It will be available in stores on April 20th. It’s exciting as Summit has not released a new year-round beer in a good many years. Summit describes the beer as “an emerging American hybrid ale that crosses the boundaries of styles. This red-hued ale projects an intensity of complex hops – yet allows the drinker to experience the character of the malt with notes of apricot, pine, and grapefruit.”

Here are my quick notes from the small sample I had.
Aroma: Biscuit malt and citrus/pine hop. The hop presence in the nose is very nice.
Appearance: Bright red. Beet-like. Crystal clear. Nice persistent white head.
Flavor: Hops are the dominant feature with a blend of spicy and citrus flavors. Bitterness is high. The underlying caramel and biscuit malt provides support, but not quite enough for my taste. It wasn’t bad, I would just like a bit more malt. Dry and well attenuated. I detect the characteristic English yeast character of Summit EPA.
Mouthfeel: Medium body. Crisp. Medium-high carbonation.
Overall Impression: This is a nice hoppy session beer. More malt than a standard American Pale. Not as much malt as an Amber. It’s not overly complex, but still tasty. Don’t serve it too cold. It gets better as it warms.