Bottoms Up

Curious about New Belgium Brewing? Here’s a column I wrote on March 28, 2007.

MOST OF US who are into good beer are aware of Fat Tire (**) the amber ale if not the brewery, New Belgium of Fort Collins, Co. When home brewer Jeff Lebesch and his wife, Kim Jordan, founded the craft brewery in 1991 after a bicycle trek through Belgium, they made a number of smart moves. One of these was to hire Peter Bouckaert, Belgian-born, Belgian-trained, as their brewer. So, while New Belgium has been churning out category leaders and best sellers such as Fat Tire, Blue Paddle Pilsner (**+) and Sunshine Wheat (***), Bouckaert has also had free rein to be, well, Belgian.His philosophy, he explained at chef Bruce Paton’s memorable Belgian Beer Dinner last year, is this: What matters most, he said, is whether or not he likes the taste. “That’s what’s important. We’re in the business of creating 10 minutes of pleasure. So just enjoy it,” he said.

By free rein, I’m not kidding. Beer fermented with wild yeast, with different yeasts, with odd ingredients, fermented in wooden barrels, re-fermented. You name it. Consider New Belgium’s spring seasonal, Springboard. It’s almost all of the above. Strange spices, addition of beer aged in barrels, whew.

Springboard (***+) is amazing, and it’s our Beer of the Week. I’m with Peter on this one. I liked it. It was 10 minutes of pleasure. A cloudy lemon color, the beer has a spicy, fruity nose rising from a large, lasting head of rocky foam. It has a full mouth-feel and an unusual, drying, spicy, herbal finish.

One caution: This is a beer to drink fairly cold. When it warms, the spices tend to take over and create a dry, almost herbal drink.

In all honesty, I believe this is the first time I’ve ever had to look up ingredients. Besides two-row pale barley malt, there’s a percentage of oats, which the brewer says adds to the full, malty taste. The fresh beer is blended with a bit of beer fermented in barrels.

The herbs are Schisandra and Goji berries. According to Wikipedia, Goji berries are renowned in Asia as a nutrient-rich natural food and have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for eons. Schisandra is a Chinese plant with bright red berries that have a sour, sweet, salty and bitter taste.

Springboard also has wormwood, the spice used in absinthe, the potent distilled drink made famous by artists in Paris early in the 20th century.

Quite a package; can’t wait to see what New Belgium does next.