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Brew Revue: Monk's Single-Barrel Cantillon Kriek
A copper brewing kettle at Cantillon cantillon.com
Brew Revue: Monk's Single-Barrel Cantillon Kriek
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| A copper brewing kettle at Cantillon |
| cantillon.com |
In 1900, the Cantillon (pronounced Can-tee-yon) family founded what would become Belgium's most valued producer of the heritage style of beer known as lambic. Today, the Van Roy-Cantillon family still brews the astringent style to worldwide acclaim; their unpasteurized, unsweetened beers have set the standard by which all other lambics are judged.
When Tom Peters, co-owner of Monk's Café, discovered the wonder of Belgian beer for the first time in 1984, he didn't know he would be the man to turn Philadelphia into the country's number one consumer of Belgian beer. He did know there wasn't anything like these beers in America, and he set about wrangling Belgian brewers hesitant to export their babies to a time-consuming and unlikely market. Lambic, being sour, and low in carbonation and alcohol, was judged to be even less palatable to the American drinker, and languished in obscurity until the late nineties when brews from Cantillon, Boon, Hanssen's and Girardin became more available -- a trend boosted and talked-up constantly by Peters, who even devoted a draft line at Monk's to the tart beer.
After years of selling Cantillon brewer Jean Van Roy's beers, Peters has had the opportunity to blend his own lambics at Cantillon. His latest offering is a single-barrel kriek lambic available exclusively on a hand-pumped cask at Monk's Café.
The spontaneously fermented lambic was brewed in January of 2007, with 35 percent unmalted wheat and 65 percent malted barley (all organically grown). Two-year-aged Hallertau hops were added for preservation and the beer was kegged in September of 2007.
When Peters visited Cantillon brewery on September 4, 2008, Belgian bar owner Jean Hummeler joined him touring the barrel-aging room. The oak casks used to age lambics are equipped with three bungs: the large top for the initial aeration and fermenting beer to bubble out of, the side bung for the emptying of the keg at the end of aging, and the small bottom bung. The bottom bung is gently removed to obtain a sample of the aging beer during its process. Peters noticed that Hummeler was checking the small drips of spilled beer that had collected under the bottom bungs of the casks. When questioned on what he was looking for, he replied, "Fruit flies."
Fruit flies are attracted to the spilt beer that contains the sweetest, most concentrated fruit. Since Peters was looking to choose a cherry-fruited kriek beer, he decided to taste from the casks that had attracted the most fruit flies. The cask he ultimately chose had the brightest fruit flavor, and had also been the favorite of the tiny (drunken) flies.
Since the oak aging casks are permeable, lambics in their unblended state have almost no carbonation left. In American terms, they're flat beer. Peters wanted Monk's guests to taste the lambic in its pure state, just as he did in the barrel-aging room at Cantillon. Minus the odd floating fruit fly, the hand-pumped beer is just that.
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| Monk's Café Cantillon Kriek |
Three hundred grams per liter of Belgian-grown Kellery cherries were added, by hand, one at a damn time, through the top bung of the oak cask to infuse a tart cherry flavor and bright ruby color into the beer. The whole cherries, including pits and stems, lend a fresh, crushed cherry nose to the lambic. A very subtle marzipan note from the cherry pits underlies the dominant fruit flavor, and as lambics go, this one isn't very sour, with no perceptible acetic acid. There is a distinct, clean tartness that makes your mouth water after swallowing the beer.
Brewed by arguably the finest lambic brewer in Belgium and selected by the guy who brought lambic to America, Monk's Single-Barrel Cantillon Kriek is a beer not to be missed by the aficionado or newbie. It is available only as a hand-pumped draft in Monk's Café back bar for $8.50 a glass, plus the killjoy government's 10 percent liquor tax.
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