Bell’s Brewery Director of Operations John Mallett is known for his precision, focus on process, and undying love of malt (he wrote the book on the subject). But the beers he prizes most are beers that showcase a true and honest expression of the ingredients themselves, whether that’s malt-forward beers that taste like the fields of barley they come from, lambics that showcase the incredible interplay of yeast, bacteria, fruit, and wort, or hoppy beers that convey the care with which the hops themselves are selected.
“I’m not going to say Orval because I think probably every brewer in the world says Orval, but it’s a magnificent beer.”
John Mallet is a consummate brewer’s brewer, and his focus on getting it right extends to the exact phrasing he uses to describe beers. Throughout our conversation, he often backed up, rethought, and restated his opinion, so it expressed the exact sentiment he intended to convey. This same attention to detail is evident in the beer he brews at the legendary Bell’s Brewery (Kalamazoo, Michigan), and it’s the same standard he seeks out in the beer he drinks.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (Chico, California)
You don’t even need to say anything more than the name. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is just technically awesome. Such a great focus on quality. The people, the place, the beer, the intent, the stewardship—all of it is right there. The first time I had it was a long time ago—it would have been in Boston where I worked retail in a liquor store on Beacon Hill. That beer came in—this was probably 1987—and it was bright. My memory is somewhat dim—I didn’t really know what I was doing tasting beer back then. But in all the years since, if I’m out and I see that beer on, I always think, “That’s going to be a good drinking beer.”
Augustiner Bräu Lagerbier Hell (Munich, Germany)
Augustiner Bräu is an old-school Munich brewery, and the beer has just an incredible malt presence. Crushable—it’s just so easy drinking. I think about that beer as being transparent back to the farmer’s field, down to the barley used to make the malt. Those varieties are really old varieties. And there’s something about this beer that just pulls it together. Really nice hops and malt selections allow it to shine through the beer. It’s almost like the brewer becomes invisible and the beer is a reflection of the fields.
Of beers that are like it, I’d say that Schönramer or Keesmann Herren Pils—these are beers that are just beautiful, pure representations of German agriculture. I was in Bamberg a month or two ago, and we spent a night in a bar there drinking Herren Pils, and it was just… so good. I love that beer—it’s the beer I go back to Bamberg for.
But we’re talking about Augustiner. The stewardship they have from contracting with the same farmers to malting the barley in the brewery all the way through to getting it to the pubs, that’s the “grain-to-glass” that helps make that beer great.
Drie Fonteinen Schaerbeekse Kriek (Beersel, Belgium)
Beer is such a complement to food, and I love to drink this one with food. The combination of the fruit and the acidity—I’ve had some really memorable meals where they’ve just sung together. As you drink this beer, it has both a richness and also the ability to clear the palate. It harmonizes so well with Flemish food, which I love. The beer is super solid, Armand is a great guy, and when you pour it in the glass, it’s like magic. I’ve had a few memorable meals with great people in great conditions. I love how Armand has such a turn of phrase, where he’s describing the incredible artistry that brewing a beer of that nature involves. My experience of the beer is informed by the experience of the company present. We know that aroma and memory are incredibly closely linked, and that beer lights up that neural pathway for me.
Odell Brewing Company IPA (Fort Collins, Colorado)
I love the brilliant pop of hops. The hops just scream forth, and they are forceful, and yet you can tell that they’re carefully chosen, so it’s quality over quantity, and the quantity is considerable. The hops notes are so bright. With hops, I taste the picking window—the time when the hops are harvested has a lot to do with the beer in the glass—and the hops for Odell IPA are obviously well selected. The timing of the hops-picking window is evident in that beer. The malt is balanced—it’s not the star, but you need that supporting cast. The hops are the star, and it’s evident that the malt bill itself marries well with the hops direction. Anyone can brew a hops bomb. Balancing the malt is the non-obvious key to a fantastic IPA.
New Glarus Brewing Company Staghorn Octoberfest (New Glarus, Wisconsin)
This style should be about malt, and this beer is all about malt. Dan and Deb Carey have built a magnificent brewery that is really devoted to refining the brewer’s art to a very fine degree. Like many great brewers, Dan focuses on raw materials—on the ingredients that provide the essence of the beer. Sourcing, brewing execution, and attention to the minutiae of running the brewery come through in that beer. He has an intense focus. It’s a great pleasure to sit and talk with him because he’s very humble, very smart, and knows exactly what he wants to get out of a beer. He knows how to make great beer. A brewing-school friend of mine who worked with Dan at one point mentioned that if God had any questions about brewing beer, God would call Dan. The beer itself is malt-forward with herbal, slightly spicy hops married with excellent yeast aroma. You can tell that the yeast is well-treated there. Happy yeast.
Boulevard Brewing Company Saison Brett (Kansas City, Missouri)
I would never have guessed that Kansas City is located in the Belgian countryside, but a quick taste of Saison Brett makes me think that my geography is off. The dry, spritzy, spicy, and phenolic attributes all work together to make an amazingly well balanced and distinctively drinkable beer. I once remarked to Steven Pauwels (the mastermind behind this awesome brew) that I don’t generally like hops-forward, yeast-driven Belgian-style ales; that the bitterness and phenols are in conflict and just don’t work well for me. Like in Orval, the secret to this beer lies in the contribution that Brettanomyces releases. In short, this beautiful beer is the nuanced exception that proves the rule.
Honorable Mention
Beers that were close but that just missed my list include Brasserie de La Senne Taras Boulba (Brussels, Belgium). It’s so light, so refined—it just sings. And there are some really phenomenal Weisse beers out there. If I had a little more room in my six-pack, those would be next.
As I was thinking about this list, there are a number of beers I would drink on draft, but I can’t put them in a six-pack, and I think of some of them as being very ephemeral, like some of the British beers that you drink in a time and space where it’s perfect, and yet you think, “This is great right now, and I don’t know that it could ever be always this great.” You taste a level of freshness in that moment that’s very yeast-driven, and as a brewer, I look at that and think, “I know it’s going to change. I can’t transport this away from here. It’s good tonight, and I need to drink it tonight so I’m going to drink a bunch of it tonight.”
Packaging great beer is really hard. Take a British beer such as Timothy Taylor’s Landlord—a really beautiful, estery, perfect kind of thing that’s all dependent on time and place. But if you take Orval, that beer is changing in the bottle. And in many ways, Orval gets better as it’s bottled. That to me is genius. So because it’s changing and that Brett character is coming up, it’s changing in a positive way.