Move over, lawnmower beers
New summer styles include sours, Grisette, juicy IPAs
Gather round, students. There’s a lesson in the works that is guaranteed to expand your beer palate at best and your vocabulary at the least. For the last few years, lagers and IPAs have dominated at breweries and on tap. But a few brewers have something more adventurous in mind for this spring and summer. Consider this list your passport to four beer styles you’re going to be hearing a lot about in the coming months.
Sours
Sour beers have been around for a while. New Glarus is among the first breweries in the United States to produce sour beers, and the brewery is considered among the best at the style of beer.
But Milwaukee’s brewery scene is kicking out local sour beers, two of them already appearing on the scene from Like Minds and MobCraft.
These beers rely on wild yeast and barrels to help the beer ferment; others use Brettanomyces yeast or Lactobacillus, a bacteria, to give the beer the acidic or tart taste that defines sour beer.
“There’s definitely a learning curve to them,” said John Lavelle, owner and brewer of Like Minds, 823 E. Hamilton St., which specializes in sour and wild ales.
“Sour beer is extremely nuanced, complex and can incorporate natural flavors from ingredients as well as their natural flora,” Lavelle added.
Sour beers can be a tough sell to beer lovers. There’s a strong funk to some of them, and a tart taste to all of them. But sour beers offer a complexity that more straightforward brews don’t, Lavelle said.
“We want to balance. We don’t want to blow people away,” Lavelle said. He aims for beers that are softer, fruitier and brighter and that work well with food.
MobCraft, 505 S. 5th St., the brewery that crowd-sources beer styles and recipes to brew, last month released Existence, a Belgian-style sour ale — the first from MobCraft since the brewery opened in Milwaukee last year.
More wild and sour beers are planned, including a mango version of Existence; Diligence, a saison conditioned with Brettanomyces and aged with plums or peaches and a Finnish-inspired beer called Ode to Sahti made with spruce tips.
The brewery 1840, 342 E. Ward St., hasn’t opened yet — brewer and founder Kyle Vetter hopes it’ll be open to the public in July — but inventory is bubbling along. A saison beer base is fermenting there in a series of barrels that once held Cabernet, Chardonnay and bourbon. Vetter worked with local brewers like Kevin Wright to create the wort then transferred it to 1840 to finish it.
Vetter contrasts the term sour, which he hates, with how beer lovers speak about IPAs.
“You can say IPA, which is a broad category and can be a lot of things, and people kind of have an idea of what to expect,” he said.
A more accurate description for sours, Vetter said, is “mixed fermentation beers.” While most beers avoid oxygen during fermentation, some sour beers rely on the oxygen that seeps through wooden barrels to help with fermentation.
And because he uses the same base for
his beer but lets it ferment in vessels from wine barrels to stainless steel tanks, he isn’t focusing on a signature flavor, but instead working to “create more from the same basic thing, and that’s one type of wort and one type of yeast.”
Grisette
Experiments are part of the routine at Third Space Brewing, 1505 W. St. Paul Ave. Not the mad-scientist variety of experiments, but research and development that result in taste and flavor.
Behold the popular Java Blanca, a collaboration with Stone Creek Coffee in which oats are added to the mash. What looks like a blonde cream ale in the glass tastes of coffee bitterness laced with creamy beer. Think deconstructed latte.
So it pays to listen up when Third Space brewmaster and co-founder Kevin Wright talks about brewing a Grisette. A what? Grisettes fall into the saison range, lighter beers historically brewed by Belgian farmers in winter and meant to be shared with workers during spring and summer days. Consider Grisettes a cousin of saisons, but made for miners and industrial workers.
It’s a fitting beer to be brewed in a former tinware manufacturing building, Wright said.
“We break from tradition by using some extremely fruity and citrusy American hops instead of the more traditional continental European hops,” he said. “The yeast strain selected emphasizes these nice hop flavors and adds some spicy pepper notes.”
Third Space has named its latest farmhouse ale Madam Grisette. It has an alcohol by volume of 4.8%.
Mexican lager
Lakefront Brewery, 1872 N. Commerce St., recently released El Wisco, the first Mexican lager in the brewery’s 30year history. Although it feels like it will never be hot in Milwaukee again, this beer should be at full popularity when temperatures finally hit the high notes.
“We wanted to brew something really refreshing and drinkable for summer, and Mexican lagers fit this category well,” said Chris Johnson, director of business development for Lakefront.
Mexican lagers are versions of Vienna lagers but with a specific yeast strain and a bit of flaked corn. You’ll taste lemon and herbal tea. The ABV is 4.1%,
“The yeast plays a big part in the flavor of El Wisco,” Johnson said. “We use a Mexican lager yeast strain that contributes to the beer’s clean and crisp lager finish. Our head brewer also uses a little flaked corn and honey malt in the recipe.”
Juicy IPAs
Northeast IPAs aren’t new to beer, but they are new to brewers in these parts. Essentially, brewers in New England turned the bitter-bomb IPAs popularized by West Coast breweries on their heads. Northeast IPAs use hops to add a fruit taste to the IPAs instead of the more familiar bitter taste many IPAs offer. They brew the beer with a cloudy appearance; a proper Northeast IPA should include bursts of fruit with each sip. Brewers in the middle of the country have their own spin on the Northeast style. This month, O’so Brewing released Hop Debacle, described as “a huge fruit bomb and an homage to soft, New England style IPAs.” Marc Buttera, coowner of the Plover brewery, describes it as a “fuzzy IPA.” “We’re trying to put a little bit of a different spin on it,” Buttera said about the brew. “It’s a little trendy. We want to capture the hype of a trend, but we don’t want to seem trendy.” The debacle portion of the name refers to the effort it took to get the right fruit-tasting hops for the beer style. The style requires hops such as Eldorado, which pack more of a fruit taste than a bitter essence. They’re added at the end when the beer is in the fermentor to keep the taste and aroma but quell the bitterness hops offer to beer. True to the style, it’s cloudy. “We said there would be two responses to this beer,” Buttera said. “When it’s poured, one guy will say ‘There’s something seriously wrong with this beer,’ and the other guy will say ‘That’s exactly what I’m looking for.’ ”
Octopi Brewing in Waunakee tapped Funk Factory Geuzeria in Madison for the first collaboration in its “Untitled Art” beer series, an IPA in the Northeast style.
It’s described as “purposely brewed and hopped in a way that is hazy and unbelievably juicy. The aroma and body boast candied oranges, although there is no juice added.”
Everything else is for the drinker to decipher.
“The beers are presented without explanation, allowing the drinker to formulate their own opinion,” said Isaac Showaki, president and owner of Octopi. Next up in the series is an Imperial Milk Stout made in collaboration with Chicago’s Mikerphone Brewing, whose owner and head brewer is Wisconsin native Mike Pallen.
Good City Brewing, 2108 N. Farwell Ave., plans to brew its version of a Northeast IPA and have it ready for release by June 17, the brewery’s first anniversary.
“I have some ideas,” said brewer and co-founder Andy Jones.