PRE-Pre-Great Taste: Special Tappings
August 6, 2015 @ 4:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Before we get too crazy with Perennial on Friday, we’ll be tapping three very special beers by some of our favorite breweries. These producers represent the pinnacle of innovation and experimentation in brewing, and we’re thrilled to feature them.
Struise Pannepot
Belgian Strong Ale
10% ABV
If Struise, one of the world’s best breweries, can be said to have a flagship beer, this is probably it. Based, purportedly, on a strong, sustaining ale favored by the area’s fisherman, Pannepot is essentially a dark Belgian strong ale, with a flavor profile suggesting stewed raisins, port wine, rum, toffee, and plum. It is immensely complex, and a very, very rare treat.
Wild Beer Co. Modus Operandi
Sour Red/Brown Ale
7% ABV
A couple of months ago, we attended a trade show at B. United Importers in Oxford, CT. After sampling dozens of beers that day, the ones that managed to stand out made quite an impression. This is one such beer: aged on oak for 90 days, Modus Operandi’s base brown ale is innoculated with wild yeasts and souring cultures, lending it a sweet/sour profile of cherry, raspberry, balsamic, and red wine. A fantastic sour beer, and very much indicative of where British craft brewing is headed.
BFM Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien
Biere de Garde
11% ABV (or thereabouts)
We’re going by the official designation here, but calling this a biere de garde is kind of like calling a wood chipper an automated hug machine. Though the beer does begin life as an amber-colored, strong-ish farmhouse ale, brewer Jerome Rebetez racks the beer into oak barrels of varying origins: red wine, grappa, and more. When he feels the barrels are ready, he blends them to create the Bon-Chien, which exhibits flavors of ripe berry, wine, oak, lemon peel, and herbaceous spirits.
