New Belgium Film and Beer Fest in MKE

Last night the New Belgium Film and Beer Festival was as fun and hilarious as it was tasty and interesting.  

The short film clips started at dusk on a giant inflatable screen, and began with a short about the members of The Overpass Light Brigade, a notorious local activist group that's famous for staging protests on highway overpasses, using distinctively, non-commercial messages, such as "end outsourcing". 



The film showed some of their work, as well as interviews with people who get out and get it done.  You'll find information about The Overhead Light Brigade here:
http://overpasslightbrigade.org/

Their prior film won an award, showing their fight against Gov. Walker's dirty tricks in Wisconsin.

Another hilarious group of activists who were were Underwear bicycle riders, who showed up in underwear on all sort of bicycles, large and small.

You'll find the underwear bicycle rider's back story here:

http://mkebke.com/2013/06/10/milwaukee-underwear-bike-ride-on-thursday-613/


The beer here was also just plain #epic too, ranging from New Belgium's canned favorite trademarks, such as Ranger India Pale Ale, Fat Tire Ale and 1554 Black Lager, to this year's small batch, one off brewing ideas, ranging from crazy curry coconut weiss beer, to barrel aged brown sour, and an even high gravity dandelion bittered ale in place of hops, harkening back to the days of before hops, when Europe's churches charged brewers for the use of gruit to spice beer.


These other small batch, one off beers were interesting and extraordinary, leaving much to take notes about.  Paardebloem, for example is a blonde ale that starts off life with a massive amount of sugar, according to the company's third longest serving employee, who allowed himself to be corned up in the company's "Hop Kitchen" tent. 

I asked him about the brew, mentioning that I've made a few dandelion beers.  He explained how New Belgium has made several commercial dandelion beers over the years, and the secret of the flavor here is derived by adding the dandelion late in the process at low temperatures to retain the vegetative flavors from the oils that aren't altered at lower temperatures, making it spicy, dry and balanced well against rich malty flavors, rather than hoppy.  Peppery notes abound. The beer was a collaboration with Salt Lake City's Red Rock Brewing. 

I'd give Paardebloem Avogadro's number, which is to say, its well worth seeking out.   


Two other super star beers were La Folie, a brown sour you'll see on the right (above the other beer's description), and Yuzu Berlinerweiss, a citrus Weiss, spiced by the Yuzu fruit. 

La Folie was extraordinary, and perfectly balanced malts to sours.  It's a brown, aromatic, beautifully sour, barrel aged brew that has a smoked flavor from being aged in French barrels. It's ABV is 7%, and IBUs are at 14.  They use Target hops here, and nothing else.  


It's made with wild fermentation, and lager yeasts. It's a beer that gets Avogadro's number too, my personal favorite of the night. The barrel aging adds a wonderful depth to one of my favorite styles.  La Folie suggests that Peekskill Brewery's Simple Sour would do well with barrel aging.

Yuzu Berlinerweiss has a wonderful light, cloudy color, with a thin froth, and a tart citrus flavor, which New Belgium attributes to the Yuzu fruit. It has a dry finish. It's on the left in the photo.


Pluot Ale was another very interesting brew for the occasion, which combines apricot and plum with brettanomyces for a golden look, nice frothy head, creamy flavor and mouth feel, all with interesting funky flavors of sweet banana and clove, all of which comes in a wild 10% ABV, with not more than 5 IBUs.

Pumpkick too was outstanding, good for an Avogadros number, featuring dark and orange color, nice froth, thick and dry mouthfeel, but hoppy and tart, unlike many of these seasonal pumpkin beers. Tastes of clove, and cinnamon.  If you look close at this photo, you'll see this short clip featured city backdrop in front of MKE's city backdrop, which was an interesting and funny snapshot to find on my phone today.

French Hop Aramis IPA was another interesting pull, directly from dudes manning the Hop Kitchen, where I get to chat with the MC, who said he was New Belgium's third hire, 23 years ago. 

Aramis IPA was hazy and frothy, with an interesting medicinal flavor, which I know is not a word that's often used in a positive way, but New Belgium pulled it off. It comes in at a mere (for New Belgium) 6.7% AVB and a gob stopping 75 IBUs, using one of my favorite hops, the Saaz, with Bravo and the namesake, French Aramis.  Astonishingly, this beer makes iodine tasty and delicious.  I could literally taste medicinal iodine that my folks used to use on my knees when I skinned them up as a kid, but also I tasted it well balanced with malty, dry ending. I still have no idea how it's done or why it's so damn good, but that's Belgium bier for you.

Finally, Coconut Curry Hefewiezen was an odd number, with a light color, creamy, dry mouthfeel, and at 8% ABV for its 17 IBUs.  It has a incense flavor, literally like drinking incense. It's a Charlie Papazian recipe, a home brewer with storied success.

New Belgium's Clip series heads south next for fall months, to cities such as Charlotte, Knocksville, Charleston and Ashville, which may be an effort toward building brand down south.  Most of the cities they hold these events are far away from 1st tier, or even 2nd tier cities.

I asked the employees whether any other Midwestern or Eastern states were considered before New Belgium decided to locate its new brewery in Ashville, NC (a grain salesman told me that upstate NY had everything they were looking for except low wage labor),  He said it was largely a transportation thing, with proximity to an East/West interstate corridor.