Top Three Breweries
I’ll limit this to three visited (or re-visited) in the past year, but those are not too shabby. I have to mention Brauerei Schönram, for the flavorful, moreish lagers that were like my daily bread when living in Germany. Then to Belgium for 3 Fonteinen, the Pajottenland lambic brewery and blendery that assembles my favorite oude gueuze—dry, earthy, ebullient, perfectly melding musty-grapefruit-like acidity with soft bitterness. Maestro Armand Debelder has stepped away from the kettles to do more of the talking and holding court—which he clearly enjoys—while the beers haven’t lost a step under former protégé Michael Blancquaert. Finally, a few miles northeast of there in Brussels, the Brasserie de la Senne has moved into larger digs but continues to push the needle on how much gorgeous noble hop character can be crammed into a glass of ale (which nonetheless remains hugely drinkable). I tend to talk about fresh Taras Boulba or Zinnebir in Brussels with the same reverence that others reserve for how Guinness tastes in Dublin.
Top Five Beers
Here are the five I enjoyed most in the past year—purely hedonistic, in sepia-toned flashback:
Widawa Smoked Baltic Porter 24° (Chrząstawa Mała, Poland) I kept going back to the well for this beast at the Kraft Roku festival in Poznan, Poland, last winter. A beer that thick and strong (10.5 percent ABV) should not have been so hard to stop drinking.
Hogshead Gilpin Black Gold (Denver, Colorado) During a week in Denver for the Great American Beer Festival, I tried a lot of excellent beers. This was the most memorable, from a brewery that specializes in cask ale—a last of the evening, full pint of pitch-perfect, creamy, almost fluffy, sweetish-but-dryish, chocolaty London-style porter.