IceHenge by Tyrarena Brewing and Triple 5 by New Glarus.
Don the tricolor soccer scarf and drop the frites — it’s Belgian season in Wisconsin.
Of course, there is no real season for Belgian beers, but any time two new Wisconsin-brewed Belgian-style beers hit shelves for the first time, there it is: Belgian season.
While Belgium has a storied brewing tradition of wild and sour ales, witbier, saison and even a few noted lagers, in America “Belgian” beers usually refers to a family of ales including dubbels, tripels, quads and pale and blonde ales.
Not unlike the Germanic wheat beers explored in last week’s weizenbock column, Belgians come in a wide range of colors, flavors and strengths, but share a distinctive character imparted by the yeasts used to ferment them.
In the case of Belgians, these yeast strains are known for fruity esters — often characterized as banana, bubblegum or sometimes citrus and apple or pear — and spicy phenols our palates equate to black pepper or clove.
It’s a complex palette to work with — not to mention the nearly millennium-old brewing tradition. Belgian-style beers — regardless of origin — are at least nominally alongside the famous monks of the brewing abbeys and some of the most revered beers in the world.
So, yeah, there’s some pressure on these kinds of beers.
Let’s take a look at the Badger State’s two standout entries in the Belgian pantheon that dropped in mid- to late January.
Style: Dubbel
Brewed by: Tyranena Brewing, Lake Mills
What’s the deal? Tyranena’s beer honoring the Stonehenge-like ice sculpture built intermittently on Rock Lake in late winter took a train from Munich to Brussels this year. Previous iterations of IceHenge were a doppelbock, and 2021 was the first time this seasonal release made it to bottles.
What it’s like: The red iteration of the Chimay series is perhaps the world’s best-known dubbel, along with hallowed beers like Rochefort 6, Westmalle Trappist Dubbel and Westvleteren 8.
Where, how much: Six-packs of IceHenge may be running a little low at this point, so put it on the shopping list sooner than later. The beer’s $9-$10 price tag is a great value.
Booze factor: Dubbels are no slouch in this department, and IceHenge delivers a hefty 7.25% ABV.
Up close: IceHenge starts out lovely on a couple accounts: a ruby-highlighted amber brown topped by a nice dollop of tan foam, and a bready, malt-forward aroma with accents of clove, raisin and a lone banana Runt. Like most Belgians and other strong beers of winter, this beer’s complexity shines as it approaches room temperature. It’s a malty beer, with that bready, dark fruit character doing the most work but the phenols doing the most interesting work. They express in this not-at-all bitter beer in many of the ways hops would in other styles — a moderate clovelike top note that jumps in mid-drink and dances on the noticeably dry finish, departing to leave a fleeting flash of banana. It’s a fun beer and an impressive turn for a brewery that has barely done any Belgian-style beers previously.
Bottom line: 4 stars (out of 5)
Style: Tripel
Brewed by: New Glarus Brewing, New Glarus
What’s the deal? New Glarus’ first red-labeled Thumbprint beer of 2021 is all new, which is a nice turn after nearly all (worthy) retreads in this limited-release series last year. This is not New Glarus’ first entry in this style, but Triple 5 distinguishes itself with an unusual assortment of five grains in the grist: barley, white wheat, oats, brown rice and “heirloom Midwestern corn” — hence the name. Many tripels are all-malt (along with some candi sugar for carbonation-generating bottle conditioning), but the rice and corn are particularly nontraditional.
What it’s like: Benchmarks of this style include entries from, again, Westmalle and Chimay (Trappist Tripel and White, respectively). On this side of the pond is perhaps the world’s best tripel, Unibroue Fin du Monde from Canada, and an excellent version from Maine’s Allagash.
Where, how much: Thumbprint four-packs are available at every good bottle shop but many grocery stores as well. They’ll run $10-$12.
Booze factor: As the step up from double to triple implies, this feller brings even more fermentable sugars (and therefore alcohol). Triple 5 weighs in at a dangerous 9% ABV, particularly for as easy-drinking as it is.
Up close: Triple 5 pours a deep gold, with zippy carbonation leaving a slab of white head, and the aroma is multitudes: hints of bubblegum, clove, sweet orange, banana, and a bunch of grain notes that are tough for me to parse. I don’t know if I’d think it if this were a tripel from another brewer, but I detected an echo of Spotted Cow in the background. Might that be the corn working? Sniffing this beer is quite rewarding, but don’t forget to drink it, too, because it’s delicious. All of those notes from the aroma reprise with every sip, and between the beer’s medium body and its dry, peppery snap of a finish, you will want to drink it faster than you should drink a niner.
It’s probably unfair to expect both mastery of style and unexpected flourishes that work perfectly from a brewery, but here we are, with New Glarus delivering exactly that just about every time.
Bottom line: 4½ stars (out of 5)
Beer Baron’s Beers of the Year 2020: Worst Year Ever Edition
Let’s take inventory of the most unforgettable, symbolic and just downright delicious beers of 2020.
This was not the best new beer Madison’s Ale Asylum released this year, but it was unquestionably the most successful, and it’s obvious why without even cracking open the can. This beer’s label perfectly captured the zeitgeist at the time of its release in early April, and it never really stopped resonating. The pilsner was followed by a hazy pale ale version, and both were taken national by the new Wisconsin-based distributor Brew Pipeline. Locally, the brewery has offered the FVCK COVID duo and many of its other beers for $6 a six-pack for most of the year. By the way, my favorite new Ale Asylum beer also had a “ugh, 2020” theme: MRDR HRNT, the first in a new “Apocalypse Bingo” series. It’s a pale ale heavily dosed with Mosaic, Denali and Trident hops that create an intense, nearly hard seltzer-like lemongrass-lime character.
This is not one but 25 beers, a different one from each of the Wisconsin breweries that committed to this worldwide collaboration started by San Antonio’s Weathered Souls Brewing. Most of the beers were imperial stouts, but the Black Is Beautiful black IPA (remember that style?) from community-focused Delta Beer Lab might have been my favorite of those I tried. The other participating Madison-area breweries were Herbiery, Giant Jones, Parched Eagle, Rockhound, Sunshine and Young Blood. Black Is Beautiful was, of course, a response to the other story that defined 2020: our national awakening on racial justice. The 1,192 breweries that took part pledged to donate proceeds to local foundations that support police reform and legal defense for those who have been wronged by police, and also committed “to the long-term work of equality.” I am happy to drink to that.
Yes, there are plenty of beers on this list that are not a statement on times like these. And Untitled Art’s take on the legendary Chocolate Shoppe ice cream flavor was probably my favorite of them. Loaded with lactose for sweetness and creaminess, and cocoa nibs and dark malts for chocolate character, it was not just a beer that tasted like chocolate ice cream but specifically like Zanzibar. It was sweet but not overly so, and the chocolate had dark depths and the fruity complexity of its namesake.
Young Blood Beer Co. picked a heck of a year to debut. The plan was to pack the taproom on King Street and pour glass after glass of head brewer Kyle Gregorash’s IPAs, saisons, lagers and pastry stouts. The opening went ahead in May, with a quick pivot toward canning the bulk of the beer, though the sidewalk patio did brisk business, too. Young Blood’s M.O. is to crank ’em; its Untappd page records 117 different beers already. And while this is really a nod for the entire brewery over a single beer, I don’t think any Young Blood I had this year surpassed the mostly by-the-book but excellent saison Cheryl’s 2004 Cobalt. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the colorful cans in my fridge — and what they come up with next for beer names — in 2021.
The label of color fields and geometric shapes was almost as adorable as this beer’s diminutive pop culture namesake, but the beer inside was the real force. Released for Third Space Brewing’s fourth anniversary in September, this kinda-hazy session IPA packed bright citrus and stonefruit flavors and a satisfying body despite its wee 3.9% ABV. Baby Yo capped a great year of new hoppy beers, with kveik yeast stars Nordic Sunrise and Fjord Explorer strong BOTY contenders as well.
If you’re the most successful craft brewery in Wisconsin and you’re going to release only one new beer in a year, it had better be a banger. And this complex, enigmatic sipper sure was. A blend of three batches of spontaneously fermented ale from New Glarus’ “wild fruit cave,” it incorporated Geisenheim grapes after blending to put an unmistakable spin on brewmaster Dan Carey’s familiar fruit lambics. This sweet creation was aptly named, with a floral, intensely fruity profile of apricot, white grape and honey that really did evoke a butterfly’s sip.
Oktoberfests get all the love every year, but a great Vienna lager can scratch that toasty-malty itch year-round. For that reason, I didn’t love that this beer from Lakefront Brewery’s My Turn series came out in fall when shelves were already loaded with beers with a similar profile. But it was still a standout: bready and flavorful but clean and balanced. Wisconsin brewers, let’s be like Lakefront warehouse employee Johnny Hopgood (his real name, a true aptonym) and make some more Vienna lagers, please!
Yes, the bow on top of my 2020 Beers of the Year is a 117-year-old American light lager that you can find literally everywhere. I wrote a column in May revealing the Champagne of Beers as my “comfort beer,” a rock of palate certainty to balance the uncertainty in the world. But as the year marched on, I realized there was another factor bringing me back to High Life. On Feb. 26, a Molson Coors electrician killed five co-workers and himself at the Miller Valley brewery in Milwaukee. I feel a kinship with this beer for many reasons but the one I thought about often while buying yet another 12-pack this year was a solemn solidarity with the survivors of that day and the loved ones of the fallen: Dale Hudson, Gennady "Gene" Levshetz, Jesus “Jesse” Valle Jr., Dana Walk and Trevor Wetselaar.
Got a beer you’d like the Beer Baron to pop the cap on? Contact Chris Drosner at chrisdrosner@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @WIbeerbaron.
February 27, 2021 at 10:00PM
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