La Folie tour at New Belgium Brewery- beer geek article!!
You've been warned! This is long and definitely slanted toward the serious beer geek/enthusiast/advocate/whatever because I wrote it for BeerAdvocate.com- :b:
The opportunity was given to a handful of BeerAdvocates recently to have a La Folie tasting at New Belgium Brewery in beautiful Ft. Collins, Colorado. This is not about the enthusiasts, or our enthusiasm, which was unbridled. Rather it is about the passion of the creators and keepers of what is arguably one of the finest beers in its style and possibly one of the finest American beers made. The following is a recount of this wonderful experience.
We started with a glass of La Folie ’05 from the NBB tasting room which is as much an architectural experience in itself as a beer experience. A few minutes later, Lauren Salazar, QA/ Sensory Analyst, escorted us into her office next door to the production floor, and by the employee slide. She proclaims she uses the 2-story curly-Q slide exclusively when coming downstairs from the administrative offices located on the second floor. Lauren begins the presentation with a glass of La Folie in her hand, as well. She seems to take inspiration from it.
First, she apologizes for taking so long to get this tour organized. We’re standing in the presence of one of the creators of such legends as, La Folie, Le Terroir, Love, and future beerwork we can only imagine, and she’s apologizing?! She begins to tell us of the transformation of gallon jugs of experimental brettanomyces cultures into a couple of inoculated wood barrels. She tells us how these original barrels were then used to inoculate more barrels until she had 10, 20, and then 60 barrels working magic. She describes an organic evolution of growing and splitting inoculated beer that reflects the very life of the bacteria and yeast. The original base beers were the regular New Belgium lineup of Abbey, Fat Tire, 1554, and the now retired Old Cherry Ale, and other inspirational brews. Lauren breaks up the Latin-laced and microbiological conversation with a funny story of incorporating a bottle of grain alcohol into a barrel; a bottle that had been passed like a joke from desk to desk to desk getting gag laughs, until… into a barrel it went, taking its Mojo with it! Amidst the hard work and serious dedication, this is obviously a casual place to work as is evident in the visible tattoos, piercings, constant laughter and even kilts.
Lauren describes how she and her husband, Eric, brewer for New Belgium, became the project baby sitters taking guidance initially from Peter Bouckaert. Then the project became their school. A mountain of barrels became her playground. She tasted and tasted, week after week after week. She tells how she would carry a siphon up a pyramid of teetering barrels seeking flavors that slowly evolved, matured, and sometimes became great. Through the process, beers were added and subtracted, notes taken, barrels mixed, and months became years. Lauren tells of developing a system of evaluating factors for the barrels that became a smiley, no smiley, and frown system. She talks of past formulas like they were water color sketches, or doodles, when in fact they created vintages that are expected to be talked about for years. Insane!
Finally, it was agreed to invest in 60 and 120 Hectoliter foeders. Suddenly Lauren says she was asked to pick a few of her best barrels to make room for the larger woods. In what seemed like an overnight decision she had to choose which original barrels to keep, essentially picking her favorite children. The others were sold for $10 apiece still full of base beer! As homebrewers, that feeling of a being a dollar short and day late swept over a few of us listening to this fairy tale.
A few of those “cast-off” barrels have gone to do some pretty special work in their own right. A few of these barrels currently reside at Pizza Port. The Peter Bouckaert/Tomme Arthur connection can be tasted in the bretta anomalous creation known as Mo Betta’ Bretta. And what does Tomme Arthur, Director of Brewery Operations at Pizza Port, think of La Folie? “I believe in my heart that the New Belgium La Folie is well on its way to becoming a "standard" of American Brewing,” states Tomme. He goes on to say, "Much like art where timeless pieces exist continually over time, we are seeing the emergence of this wild ale on its own terms. Crafted from a Belgian inspired tradition with an idealism rooted in the essence of American Craft Brewing, La Folie enriches and rewards those who both make it and those who seek it out."
Also, Coopersmith’s in Fort Collins has a NBB barrel, and Jason Yester, brewman and barrel lover at Bristol has used at least one NBB barrel to get his Skull and Bones series started. (Skull and Bones recently took 3rd place and Le Terroir took 2nd at the Chicago Wood Barrel Festival in the category of wild brews.) Other barrels went down the drain, and are lost. During all this movement, Lauren regretfully realized she was missing one of her favorite barrels, a barrel that produced nothing but Love.
For years she didn’t know where it had gone until recently she saw the barrel at Russian River Brewing Company working its magic with Brewer/Owner Vinnie Cilurzo. "The depth of flavor in La Folie is exceptional; it is one of the most unique beers being made in the United States. New Belgium Brewing Company should also be applauded for brewing with wild yeast and bacteria's, most breweries of their size would never consider using these "critters" because of the chance of cross contamination,” says Vinnie. He goes on to say, “I tip my hat to New Belgium and am also very appreciative of all the help and support Peter Bouckaert has given me with all of our wild beers." It seems Peter Bouckaert has done for Flemish sour beers in America what Hy Lerner has done for Flemish Desem breads acting as mentor and proponent.
With our glasses quickly becoming empty, it’s time to tour the cellar, and meet the cellar master. Lauren takes us outside just around the corner from her office through a garage door to the wood cellar. Here we meet her husband Eric Salazar and Chris Holbrook who tend to the wood. We walk through the cellar of two-story foeders. The cellar is really a “woods”. It’s every bit as beautiful and meaningful as a walk through a hardwood forest. Eric speaks with reverence of touring Rodenbach’s coopering workshop, and says candidly that he would be satisfied to shave staves all day. The wood is relaxing. We hear about how to maintain one of these beer silos; how they have to be scraped; how they dry out and leak when they’re filled again; how they live and breathe. And, as a final mystery of their existence, how they can all be inoculated with the same culture, but churn out different tasting products.
Eric introduces us to the hodge-podge of equipment that has been assembled to drain, strain, inoculate, and mix the contents of the different barrels. He smiles as he says that this is back to old school brewing. The whole cellar has been cut out of a part of the warehouse. The old dock ramps and doors are reminders that this used to be a loading zone. Between the two old docks is the New Belgium climbing wall. Cut out of the concrete is a drain channel that takes run-off into New Belgium’s state of the art, aerobic and anaerobic waste water treatment facility. We step over the hoses and connections to hear Lauren tell of the blending process as it happens right before our eyes.
For this part of the tour we are given samples of the latest La Folie blend waiting to be bottled this week. La Folie is currently out of stock and only blended/bottled a few times each year. Our taste is of La Folie straight out of the filter, but prior to the addition of champagne yeast. It’s incredible and just lacking that little zing that the yeast and a couple additional weeks of aging will achieve. Lauren tells us how she has tried to create a blend that doesn’t make people turn up their noses and make a face. All those fantastic vintages, and she’s worried that it’ll pucker, amazing! She goes on to describe her goblet system of blending. This is where they taste globes of each barrel, and blend and blend them to nail down percentages to mix for the final bottling. From mere ounces, these keepers of La Folie determine how many hectoliters of each barrel will be blended to create this version of hopeful perfection. The tasting never ceases.
We go on to taste samples from 5 different foeders all at different stages of maturity. Terroir without the hops is incredible! La Folie without fiddling! Lauren describes a non-systematic approach to inoculating each barrel so that it seems to us that there’s a little bit of everything in each foeder. One barrel has even been filled with extra Mountain Mantra with the intent that the high IBU and ABV will purge the wood of some off flavors. This will eventually be dumped and the barrel scraped. Who knows what insanity will come from this act of impishness!
The difference in the beer from these barrels is incredible! Some are brown and taste like sour apple; others look and taste of wet straw, dusty lanes, and memories of fermentation from another time. Some have very slight oak tendencies while others are dominated by this oakiness. The “youngest” barrels are reminiscent of nearly sun-baked cow dung as the bacteria are in full bloom. Yet, maltiness is present, and sugars are detectable: A base beer is being digested right across our palates! Lauren says there is a base recipe for La Folie, but it’s apparent that it seems to change each time depending on what’s coming out of the brew house. The difference in flavors is boggling to the mind.
Eric describes how his current project is to create the next Pilgrimage beer for the tasting room at New Belgium. The Pilgrimage series is a way for New Belgium to put new concepts into their brew house. Eric will be blending a fresh fruit beer with 2 year wood aged Biere de Mars without spices base brew. Reminiscent of the TransAtlantique Kriek except this beer will be a 100% product of New Belgium and described as peach lambic-esque in style. Along with the recent ultra-limited release of Le Terroir, hopefully, these experiments signify the next step for the New Belgium wood cellar: More beer!!
Tasting what turns into La Folie is inspiring. The experience was awesome. The tour was amazing. The generosity was heart warming. Still, it is the atmosphere of standing under the “woods” talking with the heart and soul of La Folie, Lauren and Eric who bestow upon Peter Bouckaert the title of “reigning sour beer mentor”, which makes the evening momentous. New Belgium could serve bottled tastings of the different barrels, but for what end? Individually bottled and sampled without the environment there would be an analytical reference, but there would be no understanding of the poignancy involved. La Folie is very much an emotional representation of Lauren, and Eric, and their work environment: La Folie simply embodies the values of New Belgium.
WTF? has anyone had it?:-$
