Today’s beer video, is a short love letter to Orval, a beer which I drank quite a lot of over the past week in Belgium, including a few glasses at the brewery cafe. The name of the video comes from the music used, which is taken from the soundtrack to the Harrison Ford movie Air Force One, and was written by Jerry Goldsmith.
Beer In Film #40: Analyzing American & Belgian Beers
Today’s beer video, in honor of it being Sour Sunday, is a film of a talk given by Jeff Clawson, who’s the Pilot Brewery Manager at Oregon State University’s Food Science & Technology Department. In the 23-minute video, Clawson “discusses a recent study on sour beers at a Science Pub event at the Calapooia Brewery in Albany, Oregon. OSU is one of the world’s leaders in research on hops and the brewing sciences, and many graduates of the fermentation sciences programs go on to have a huge impact in the industry.”
Beer In Film #31: Brewery Cantillon
Today’s beer video is in honor of today being the feast day of St. Veronus, who’s the patron saint of Lembeek and Belgian brewers. It’s a tour of Brewery Cantillon, shot in 2009 by the staff of The Beer In Me. It’s a short, almost ten-minute walk around the brewery museum in Brussels.
The Belgian Kings
Today’s infographic, De Belgische Koningen, is a chart of Belgium’s six kings, although a seventh was crowned earlier this year. I met King Philippe this past June, when he was still just the crown prince and was leading a trade delegation to San Francisco. Plus, today is last full day in Belgium, though so far we’ve had no sign of the king.
Click here to see the chart full size.
Belgium: A Nation Divided
Today’s infographic isn’t strictly about beer, but the politics of Belgium. But I thought it was relevant because I’m in Belgium this week, visiting breweries throughout the Northern part of the country.
Click here to see the infographic full size.
Cantillon’s Zwanze Day 2013 Announced
Cantillon just announced both the date — September 14 — and the participating bars for this year’s Zwanze Day. If you’re not familiar with it, here’s an overview I wrote about last year’s Zwanze Day for my newspaper column.
Belgium has essentially two separate regions, with the northern half known as Flanders. The language spoken there is a dialect of Dutch, known by the same name as the people of Flanders: Flemish. The word “zwanze” is unique to Flemish, has its origins in Yiddish, and essentially means a self-deprecating type of humor that’s typified by sharp-edged, playful jokes, usually good-natured. It’s said that this type of humor has become “a characteristic, defining trait” of the Flemish themselves, and for some a way of life. A “zwanze” is a joke, a “zwanzer” a joker.
It was with that same playful spirit that Cantillon approached the concept of making a Zwanze beer. The goal was to create a fun beer; something a little unusual, using non-traditional ingredients. This year’s Zwanze beer is made with rhubarb. The base beer is a Lambic, with two seasons, or summers, in wooden barrels. That’s then moved into a stainless steel conditioning tank where 300-grams of rhubarb per liter — about 2/3-pound — are added and aged for roughly three months, and then it’s kegged directly from the tank.
The first Zwanze beer was made in 2008, and was also a rhubarb beer. In subsequent years they’ve made it with elderflowers, pineau d’aunis (a red wine grape) and last year they brewed a sour witbier, made with the traditional coriander and orange peel. This is the only repeat so far, which was necessitated when the originally planned 2012 version — a Lambic take on a Trappist Abbey Ale — didn’t mature in time. Van Roy decided instead to make the rhubarb Lambic again, primarily because it was his wife’s favorite.
As a result, while it’s not been announced, I believe this year’s Zwanze Day beer will most likely be that Lambic take on a Trappist Abbey Ale that wasn’t quite ready last year.
A worldwide toast of the rare, unique beer will be held simultaneously at 46 beer bars and breweries across the globe, in 14 countries, mostly European. By far, the U.S. has the most, with 22, including four in California:
- Beachwood BBQ — Seal Beach, California
- Mikkeller Bar SF — San Francisco, California
- Russian River Brewing — Santa Rosa, California
- Stone Bistro & Gardens — Escondido, California
You can find the full list at Cantillon’s website.
Belgian Beer Pantone
Today’s infographic shows the Belgian Beer Pantone, that is the color range of Belgian beers. It was created by Belgique, a small chain of British cafes selling Belgian food and beverages, and they also have an online store selling Belgian beer, among other Belgian products.
Click here to see the poster full size.
Annie Leibovitz Shoots Stella Artois
A couple of days ago, Stella Artois sent out a press release that iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz was hired by Anheuser-Busch InBev to shoot photos for their Belgian lager. The photos are being released at the Sundance Film Festival, which started two days ago, apparently amid much hoopla. Which makes sense when you realize that Stella Artois is an “official sponsor” of the independent film festival, listed as a “sustaining sponsor.” They’re in fact the only big alcohol company sponsor, among quite a few corporate sponsors. I don’t know why that seems odd to me, but I guess I thought Sundance was supposed be about independent filmmakers, especially when the site also includes a donations page where they make it sound like your $10 will make a grassroots movement possible. Maybe I’ve become jaded, but the nearly two dozen truly big sponsors plus what looks like it could easily be another hundred more company sponsorships, seems counter to the principal of “independent” and their mission of “discovery and development of independent artists and audiences.”
In both the press release, Stella Artois Unveils New Campaign Shot by Legendary Photographer Annie Leibovitz and the Stella Artois website, they refer to it as a “collaboration” between the beer and photographer. But how is hiring a famous photographer and paying her to work a “collaboration” in any meaningful sense?
Merriam-Webster defines collaborate as “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.” That’s what brewers do when they get together to brew a beer, most times at least, but this just seems like a big company paying a lot of money (one presumes Annie Leibovitz doesn’t work cheap) to an expensive big-name photographer to sell a big product. Does that make it art? I honestly don’t know. I think I’m cranky and overworked these days.
Here’s some more press release spin:
It features British Actor, Noah Huntley and Ukrainian model Tanya Ruban and will appear in the printed fashion titles such as GQ, Elle and Vanity Fair, beginning in February 2013.
“Annie Leibovitz’s work marries artistic genius with painstaking craftsmanship to create timeless beauty,” said Emma Fox, Global Marketing Director, Stella Artois. “This concept is a personal one for Stella Artois. Our fans experience the beer in its finished form, but 600 years of brewing expertise helped make this possible. So we wanted to celebrate both the beauty and the craftsmanship that go into its creation”.
So here’s the results, or at least two of them. You can see lots of behind the scenes of the photoshoot itself — why you’d want to, I don’t really understand — in the Stella Artois Studio, what the press release refers to as an “online experience.”
It’s not that they’re bad photographs, but they certainly don’t make me want to drink Stella Artois. Didn’t Jeff Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer already do this in The Fabulous Baker Boys.
Belgian Beer Guide Flowchart
Here’s a fun little “decision chart” from Faultline helping you figure out which type of Belgian beer to choose, and what to eat with your beer. The info on the chart was put together by Ryan Sweeny from Little Bear, a Belgian beer cafe in Los Angeles. Apart from the chart butchering the spelling of Tripel, it’s a fun, simple, potentially useful chart for the uninitiated looking to enjoy some belgian beer.
To see the chart full size, click on this link.
What Are You Eating?
How Much Are You Drinking?
C2CT2: Second Annual Coast To Coast Toast November 15
Last year, Vanberg & DeWulf, the beer import company founded by Don Feinberg and Wendy Littlefield, celebrated their 30th anniversary with a Coast to Coast Toast. It was such a great success, that they’re doing it again this year. C2CT2 — Coast to Coast Toast 2 — will take place this year on November 15, which in Belgium is “King’s Day,” a national holiday celebrating their monarchy. So it’s a great date to celebrate Belgian beer and Belgian culture.
Last year, about 350 establishments across the country participated in the Coast to Coast Toast to Belgian beer. This year, Wendy tells me it should be at least 400. If you want to see if there’s a C2CT2 event taking place near you, there’s a list you can download at their website. If you want to consider hosting a toast, you can sign up at Eventbrite.
Even if you can’t make it out — I’m staying in again and toasting with the missus, for example — toast them in the comfort of your home. It should be easy enough to find one of the great beers they import. Any beer from the following Belgian and European breweries will fit the bill.
- Amiata
- Castelain (also St. Amand)
- De Cam
- Dilewyns
- Dubuisson (Scaldis and Cuvee de Trolls)
- Dupont (also Moinette, Foret, Les Bons Voeux and others)
- Ölvisholt BrugghÚs, Iceland
- Slaghmuylder (Witkap Stimulo Singel Abbey Ale)
- V&D exclusive collaborations with De Troch (Lambrucha)
- V&D exclusive collaborations with Et Famille (Lambickx)
- V&D exclusive collaborations with Scheldebrouwerij (Hop Ruiter)
You can also find a list of all of their beers in their portfolio at their C2CT2 website.
