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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Mail repaired... but.... (Pat Babcock)
  10th Annual 8 Seconds of Froth ("pddey")
  Belgium brewery visits: Witkap, Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, Rodenbach (Raj B Apte)


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Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 22:38:06 -0400
From: Pat Babcock <pbabcock at brew.hbd.org>
Subject: Mail repaired... but....

Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager...

Well, by removing Spamassassin, Razor, DCC, and Pyzor, mail is now
functioning as "programmed" and Users (that'd be me) can actually READ
the mail in a mail client. The downside of this is that the queue is
once again manually filtered for spam :^(

I am planning to migrate the whole works to postfix, so, once I get the
time to do that, we'll be in better shape...

Sheesh...


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Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 06:23:26 -0600
From: "pddey" <pddey at netzero.net>
Subject: 10th Annual 8 Seconds of Froth

Its not too late to pack up your entries and get them to Cheyenne!  Got a
summer wheat you want some feedback on?  Want to see how that Bock you laid
down is progressing?  Then send them to the High Plains Drafters where our
expert panel of BJCP judges and brewing pros will provide solid feedback and
compare your efforts to other homebrewers across the country.  And you just
might win a great prize from any one of a heap of sponsors!

Get the details from our 8 Seconds of Froth web site:
http://www.vcn.com/%7Ebbriggs/8seconds.html




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Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:37:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Raj B Apte <raj_apte at yahoo.com>
Subject: Belgium brewery visits: Witkap, Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, Rodenbach

Hi All,

I just returned from Belgium and wanted to share some notes
on brewery visits: Witkap, Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, and
Rodenbach.

Witkap: This was a very fun tour. The brewery is old and
the equipment simple. They have a museum with lots of
bottles and Witkap paraphernalia from the last 100 years or
so. We sampled the Stimulo, the triple, and the EKB. The
latter was my favorite--something like a dryhopped double.
A very nice regional brewery.

Cantillon: Traditional lambic brewing at its best. Jean van
Roy graciously spent time talking with us and poured
samples. The tour can be either self-led from a brochure or
with a guide (Jean). We wandered through, unsupervised, and
soaked in the ambiance (and Brettanomyces). One suprising
thing was how small is the cellar (its above ground).
Secondly, they are doing lots of fruit experiments
(cherries, raspberries, red grapes, white grapes, cloud
berries, &c) and hopping experiments (dryhopping lambics
and spontaneously fermented pale ale). For the hopped
experiments, Hallertau aroma hops are used after the aged
hops. Just before bottling, Goldings are used dry. The
taste is excellent--very citrus and floral.

Cantillon is located in a grimy and industrial part of
Brussels: any claim that regional microflora contribute to
the spontaneous fermentation is hard to believe. The germs
come from the brewery, either from the coolship or the
barrels. This is a fun place. If you come, try to visit on
an open brew day and watch the old machines in operation.

3 Fonteinen: The second of the three traditional lambic
houses. This is a small brewery attached to the
gueuzestakerij (gueuze blending operation) and cafe, all of
the same name.  Although Cantillon emphasizes that they
steam clean the barrels between fillings, 3 Fonteinen was
less clear. They  have the coolship in the loft, but with
no fancy way to 'control' the inoculation. The mashing is
done with a very nice, modern setup (Debelder denied they
use turbid mashing, but did not elaborate). As a blender,
they have barrels from Boon and other commercial lambic
makers in addition to their own worts. The cafe is very
nice and features some good beer-based dishes. The tap
Lambic (I think it's force carbonated; not sure if its a
blend), has a great deal of smoothness without the
saccharin or sweet taste of the sellouts. Debelder reveals
that the smoothness is partly attributable to a lactic acid
addition (in kettle?) to correct the pH to 4.5. At this
lower pH, fewer funky microorganisms (enteric?) are
involved and the taste becomes a bit simpler and much
smoother. A very elegant gueuze (I can't wait to try the
kriek). This is not sugary like the sell-outs. Don't forget
to visit Beersel castle.

Rodenbach: The tour is very commercial and you never see a
brewer, much less speak to one. Palm basically made a
museum of the old brewery and built a new one next to it.
Lots of stainless here--a real commercial operation. But
the aging tonnes are unchanged. The cellars are many times
that of the Lambic brewers and do not have the Brett smell.
They give a taste of the aged beer straight from a cask
during the tour, and the tour ends with a glass of
Rodenbach and the Grand Cru. The former is 25% Grand Cru
and 75% base beer. The Grand Cru itself is hard to find in
Belgium, but Rodenbach claims to be trying to sell/export
it. For lovers of sour ales, the Grand Cru is available in
750mls, but not bottle conditioned. The tonnes are much
larger that the barrels (650L) used for lambic, have much
thicker walls, and--I guess--admit much less oxygen during
the aging (2 years).

Belgium has other things to do besides brewery visits--it
took two weeks to just cover the basics. US law permits the
import of $800 worth of personal goods. The more relevant
limit is weight: 2x32kgs per person. In my case this meant
2 boxes of 6x750ml bottles (20kg total) in each of my
suitcases. With the carryon and a bit of help from my
girlfriend, I brought 36x750ml of beer.

enjoy,
raj




		


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