New Belgium La Folie

New Belgium is really a pioneer in the craft beer industry. They've been around seemingly forever, and their ubiquitous Fat Tire Ale is available almost everywhere (at least this side of the Mississippi). However as happens a lot of times, New Belgium faces an undeserved backlash because of how big they have gotten. I think its unfair for multiple reasons, one I don't understand why its bad to be successful? Has NB gotten large, yes, but they are still not that big when compared to BMC or even Sam Adams, so whats the problem? There are two other reasons why I think people shouldn't be hard on NB. The first having nothing to do with beer, but with good business practices is that they were one of the first (if not the first) brewery to run off of wind power. They truly are trying to make the world a better place by helping the environment, and keeping their impact on it as small as possible. The second and more beer related reasons is that while their regular line up is solid, I wouldn't call it ground breaking, however their special beers like La Folie, Abbey Grand Cru, Beirre De Mars, Eric's Ale, etc are what being called New Beglium is all about. They are all outstanding beers, some are even ground breaking. One of the first of these is the La Folie a Flanders Red Ale. Before getting into the beer though a bit on the style.
Flanders Red Ale: This a pretty unique style of Belgian beer mostly made in west Flanders. Most of these beers are aged in oak vats. This process of aging in non-sterilized wooden vessels allows the wild yeast on the wood to attack the sugars within the beer. The beer can be aged in this vessels for a pretty long time, sometimes up to two years or more. Once done aging and before final bottling, these beers are usually blended. Older ale with newer ale to help balance out the flavors. By aging the beers in the wooden vats, you can get lactic acid producing bacteria as well as the yeast strain Brettanomyces. All these things can cause different degrees of sourness, earthiness, and funkiness. While not unpleasant, brewers will blend to create balance. What this creates is a well balanced, extremely complex favorable ale that weighs in at around 4.5 to 5.5 %.
Now on to the basic spec's of the style (note these are from the BJCP website): The aroma should be fruity, black cherries, oranges, plums or red currants. You can also get some vanilla or chocolate with potentially strong sour acidic notes. There is little to no hop aroma. The color should be deep red burgundy. The mouthfeel should be medium bodied with low carbonation and flavors of plums, oranges, currants, cherry, vanilla, oak, chocolate, and some acidity and sourness.
The Beer: Ok now to the beer itself. La Folie comes packaged in a 750 ml bottled capped with a champagne cork and cage. The beer weighs 6% and pours a cloudy hazy brown with a good size taupe colored head. The nose is of sour cherries, oak, vanilla, caramel, roasted malts. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with a nice effervescence. Sour apple, cherry, vanilla, oak. Initially its mouth puckering sour, but as it warms up the sourness spreads out, and while still very powerful it is not over whelming. There are spicey notes, of black pepper, caramelly sweetness along with the fruitiness mentioned above. There is a rye bread quality there as well along with some notes of coco. An amazing beer, and a great example that New Belgium can make outstanding ground breaking beers. This gets an A- from me. Here's what the folks at BA had to say.

New Belgium: Mothership Wit

Not a bad way to celebrate my 200th post than by talking about a beer from one of my favorite breweries. While New Belgium can get a bad rap for their flagship beer Fat Tire, no one can deny that they do make some outstanding beers such as their Abbey and 1554. Also they are at the forefront of being a responsible company, using sustaining practices and the first brewery to go all wind....100% of their power comes from wind energy. They have now added Organic Brewery to their list of Green Achievements. Their newest beer is an organic Belgian Wit Beer.
The Beer: In traditional Belgian Wit fashion this beer is brewed with orange peel and coriander, and weighs in at a session worthy 4.8% alcohol. The beer pours a pale hazy straw color capped with a half inch frothy stark white head. The head does a decent job of sticking around through most of the beer. The nose is of oranges, bananas, coriander, cloves, and yeasty dough. The mouth is of sour lemons, sourdough bread, and oranges. Very zesty, very refreshing, great tasty summer beer. I'd grade it a strong B. Here's what the folks over at BA had to say.

New Belgium Springboard Ale

I am a pretty big fan of New Belgium. Outside of their Fat Tire, which has become a little less of a beer than it once was, I find their beers wonderful. So when I saw their new spring beer on shelf at my local Central Market I picked it up.
The Beer: The ingredients include wormwood (yes that mystical ingredient used in the elixir absynthe), Goji Berries, and Schisandra. Pretty exotic to say the least, and it piqued my interest. The beer weighs in at a robust 6.2%. The beer poured a cloudy golden color reminiscent of the Belgian Golden ales. Capped by a puffy white head. The nose was full of tartness, and fruit. The mouth was full, with low carbonation so it coated the tongue. White berry flavors showed up first with little bits of hops at the end. There is some sweetness but it is not from malt. There is another flavor that I just couldn't put my finger on what it was. This is a nice refreshing beer, somewhat complex, but missing anything that would make it great. Here's what the folks over at BA had to say.

New Belgium Trippel

This week I have the opportunity to try two different Trippels. The first that I tried tonight a friend of mine gave me to try, the other I picked up from Spec's and may try it out tomorrow.
The Style: Trippel ale is a Belgium style ale. While this beer does not mean that its three times as strong as a regular Trappist ale, instead it is related to the XXX that marked the casks showing that this was the strongest of the three trappist ales. Tripels are actually notoriously alcoholic, much more so than dubbels, however the best hide this warmth, making them sipping beers. Trappists ales were traditionally brewed by Monks in Belguim, however many American Craft breweries are taking up this trappist tradition, putting of course an American spin on things.
The Brewery: Ahh yes New Belgium, that maker of the ubiquitous Fat Tire, that has given them nation wide or almost nation wide recognition. New Belgium, started by a young Electrical Engineer Jeff Lebesch, who after biking his way through Europe and becoming enamored with Belgium brews got into brewing beer at home. His first two ales were the famous Fat Tire and his Abbey ale. In 1991 he and his wife Kim decided to open a brewery in Fort Collins, CO. I have had the opportunity to visit the brewery on a couple of occasions and its an exciting place as they always have a surprise beer on tap that you can only get in the tasting room. Also New Belgium practices susatainablitly in many ways and they are one of the largest breweries that use Wind power to help run their facility.
The Beer: I used a chalice style glass to help it give that more Belgium feel. The beer is made using Saaz Hops and an authentic Belgium Yeast Strain. The beer is also bottle fermented. The beer pours a nice light orange in the glass, starting with a thick head that quickly dissipates into a thin filmy white strip. The bottle fermentation gives the beer a nice level of carbonation. There are nice flavors of banana and bread with some citrusy undertones. However, although the bottle says there are plenty of hops, I didn't get that overpowering hop bitterness that I was looking forward too, neither did I get any of the alcohol warmth, which at 7.8% (although somewhat low for a trippel) I didn't feel. I would call this beer ok at best, but here is what the folks at Beeradvocate say.