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General News

Tasting Beers – Special Event

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How to Taste Beers

Ginger Beer
A Blissful Bavik Super Pils

On March 12th I ran a beer-tasting event for the Jewish community in Antwerp. My good friends at the Special Belge Taproom hosted the evening and supplied a broad variety of beers on tap.

One of the challenges of arranging a beer tasting is to line up a suitable variety of beers which are good representatives of the different styles. As this was an introduction to beer tasting, the selection had to be more main-stream. While I would have loved to present some sours and lambics, this was not the appropriate forum.

The wonderful pictures are courtesy of a beer loving photographer, Moshe Yonatan.

The Selection on Tap

For a beer tasting where you are explaining to people how to enjoy and savour beers, you have to ensure that the beers are from the best available. When they hear the word beer, a lot of people think of the cheap lagers they see in the supermarkets. They are often unaware of the wide variety of styles and the skill that goes into brewing a beautiful pint. Here was our selection:

  1. Bavik Super Pils 5.2% – Belgium’s only unpasteurized Pilsner beer on tap from de Brabandere
  2. Lupulus Hibernatus 9% – a strong dark beer with an extra flavour
  3. Lachouffe Houblon 9% – a classic American style IPA
  4. Franc Belge 5.2% – a strongly hopped Belgian Amber, a joint venture with De Ranke and Spécial Belge
  5. De Nest SchuppenBoer 8% – A full bodied strong Belgian blonde
  6. Hof ten Dormal Gin Barrel Aged Blonde 12% – A special blonde to finish off the evening.
Jeremy Sulzbacher explaining a Lupulus

Content

As it is difficult to taste 6 beers one after the other without any breaks, we arranged some content for discussion.

Although each beer had an introduction, we looked at some other issues:

  • Judaism and alcohol and its association with life events
  • How beer with hops in the Babylonian Talmud predate hops in Europe by about 500 years
  • Beer in Jewish law and custom
  • Beer’s major contributions to civilisation

The Next Tasting

Quite a few people missed the beer tasting because they had prior commitments, and we hope to arrange more beer tastings in the future.

Not Modest at the Modeste

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Ginger Beer

Successful Festival

A few months ago, I received an invitation from the Antwerp Beer College (ABC) inviting me to have a stand at the annual Modeste Beer Festival held at De Koninck’s brewery. Last year I was offered a stand outside with the T-shirts and the jewelery, as Ginger Tipple is not a proper beer. This year I was offered a stand together with the regular beers, “I am part of Antwerp brewing” was the official explanation.

Named after one of De Koninck’s previous owners, the Modeste is Antwerp’s main beer festival featuring local beers. This year there was also a Polish brewery, Nepomucen.

Tipple on Tap

Ginger BeerAlthough I had produced a few kegs for a customer in Jamaica, this was the first time I was serving Ginger Tipple on tap. I had no idea how to connect the keg to the draft equipment. Furthermore, as I had second-fermented in the keg, which is always a risky business, I was not sure how the tipples would pull.

One of the ABC’s experts connected the two beer kegs, and behold, the Tipples were producing a beautiful head, a light foam which lasted a respectable 90 seconds. You could taste that the head was natural and without the additives used by a lot of commercial beers.

Ginger BeerTap Labels

As a real newbie to kegs, I had not thought of the decal, the label to clip on to the beer tap, so I improvised with using bottle labels. I could not have manned the stand alone and my wife and two sons were there to help. My sons enjoyed tasting the excellent beers on offer from the other breweries.

Tipple Hop & Ginger Quad

Ginger BeerThe Modeste was also the first major event at which we were selling the 7% Tipple Hop and the 11% Ginger Quad. The Tipple Hop was our best seller. At 5pm with 2 hours still to go, we finished our 1st 30 liter keg and debated whether to open the second. In 2 hours we sold another 15 liters, which is a lot when you are serving tasters of 150ml!

Some visitors remembered Ginger Tipple from 2017 and were happy to see that we had expanded our range and were offering some of beers on tap.

Best Compliment

The best compliment came from the brewer and owner of one of Antwerp’s best breweries, ‘t Pakhuis, Ed Van Den Ouweland, who commented to a few people “De Tipple Hop is het lekkerste bier van het festival” the Tipple Hop is the most delicious beer of the festival.

 

What We Drink @ Home

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What we drink @ Home

People often ask me which beers do we drink at home? Do we only drink Ginger Tipple or do we also enjoy other beers?

Foodies

Ginger BeerFirst, you have to understand that not only is my wife a superb chef, but we all enjoy her delicious food. Even a simple sandwich can be upgraded into a culinary pleasure, although it often requires some creativity.

Last week I was gong to make hamburgers, but took out schnitzels instead. I baked fresh rolls, which came out more fluffy inside than usual.

After assembling the freshly fried chicken schnitzel in the bun with vegetables and sauces, all it needed was a Oude Geuze Boon.

The award winning Oude Geuze Boon is one of the finest examples of the traditional 100% spontaneous fermentation Lambic style. To moderate the sourness, Boon Brewery only brews Lambic in the 7 cold months, from early October until April, according to the traditional “turbid mash” system. This Lambic beer is aged for 1, 2 or 3 years in oak casks. The blend, a mild average 18 months old Lambic (unsweetened, unfiltered, unpasteurised) is refermented in the bottle and can be stored up to 20 years.

We also drink Ginger Tipple

This was a more simple sandwich on which we added some horseradish relish (chrain).  Unlike the shop variety, this one was coarsely grated and with less vinegar and sugar, this was a chunky chrain and full of flavour. But it turned the basic salami and mustard sandwich on 13-grain bread into an absolute pleasure which could only be enhanced with a Ginger Tipple or two.

Market Research

There are other other beers which we drink at home or when we go out, but that would fill a few more blogs. However, tasting other beers on the market is an important part of a brewers work, market research. Who said you can’t combine business with pleasure?