"Excelsior!" Part 2

by Matt Dunn

December 22, 2006

Bob Mack pilots the rental car deftly through traffic. Spinning through the innards like a blizzard tracking eastward, traffic snarls barking loudly at the out-of-towners. Gnarls Barkley throwing back to disco-soul successful going on the radio, a warm fall wind blew and the crispy brown dried oak leaves skittered across concrete sidewalks and mingled with the feet of patrons waiting to pay. All the doors were open and young people wearing clever t-shirts sat outside at tables with their dogs.

The Brooklyn Queens Expressway regurgitated us onto the blocks of Williamsburg, just across the river from lower Manhattan. Galleries, coffee shops, record stores, night clubs, a hipster neighborhood grows in Brooklyn. Gentrification rules the roost. But there were a few Williamsburg institutions ahead of the curve, a few that beat the hipsters and now make good on rents fixed before the boom. One of these is the Brooklyn Brewery.

The Brooklyn Brewery took up residence in an old, large, low, brick building covered in white plaster and ivy just a few blocks from the East River. This building once housed the foundry that produced the iron work for the Waldorf Astoria. Then it was a matzo factory that, theoretically, I guess, could also have sold their goods to the Waldorf Astoria. Now the building is home to a brewery, offices, and a small tasting bar which is open only a couple nights a week. About 15,000 barrels are made on site in Brooklyn, the other roughly 35,000 barrels of Brooklyn's annual production comes from the F.X. Matt Brewing Company in Utica New York, a large brewer that produces beers for Saranac, Dock Street, and Harpoon among others.

F.X. Matt traces its origins to 1888 as a German lager brewery, growing into one of the nation's largest regional brewers by prohibition. They are also one of the few large regional breweries that managed to survive the shakeout of the brewing industry that occurred during the latter half of the 20th century. It began in the 1950s when a handful of large regional breweries from the Midwest expanded to dominate the national market, breweries such as Anheuser-Busch, Pabst, Schlitz, and Miller. These breweries swept through the country, buying up regional brewers or forcing them out of business, leaving us today with three national firms that control about 90% of the domestic beer market.

Therefore, F.X. Matt undoubtedly takes great pride in producing many of Brooklyn's beers, but in particular their all malt lager, a beer that harkens back to the authentic continental brewing tradition that the F.X. Matt brewery was founded on, not the adjunct laden, bastard step child corporate devil spawn beer that the big three have had to embrace.

Brooklyn Lager shows a luminescent orange hue, the carbonation traverses here and there, not sluggishly, not sprightly, just rightly so. A barely off-white heads rises evenly and steadily, eventually collapsing into a dense, gooey, cooked marshmallow that leaves sticky bits of lace clinging to the glass. It breathes out a wholesome malted fullness that's warming and comfortable, but cut through deeply once or twice with the sharp sword of the hop, lest we forget its contribution.

A hefty bitterness is the first thing that asserts itself on the palate. A sharp herbal tea with lemon that lingers in the pockets under your tongue. The hearty malts of the nose take a back seat to the hops, providing a sturdy foundation on which the bitterness dances. But occasionally, as the beer warms, the malts rise up for a spin as well, intertwined between the sharp metal lines the wide, soft, sweet, pliant malts duck, dash, and sway. There is an undeniable sweetness to this beer, but a sweetness that's apparent only when you think about it. A solid body, but not thick at all. Finishes very clean with a swift, bitter reminder that hops hold sway. A masterpiece of a lager. I want more.

If the lager is a touch too hoppy, try the brown ale. It's toasted. It's like oatmeal dusted with brown sugar, a hint of cinnamon, and some maple syrup. Your grandmother tucks it into bed with a hot wool blanket. It comes out toasty and crunchy and well rounded. And it's as light as any other brown ale I've had, but complex. It's a nice session beer. Light enough to sup all day, but flavorful enough to hold your interest.

Brooklyn also plays with malts in their Oktoberfest, one of the best Oktoberfests I've ever tried. Brewmaster Garrett Oliver spent years researching heirloom German barley varieties to use in this beer. If you don't settle for Wonderbread, why settle for mass market malts? The heirloom barley is made into Munich malt in the famous German brewing city of Bamberg. This very special malt creates a plump, juicy beer that's deceptively athletic and quaffable.

Brooklyn goes a step further with the malts in their newly reformulated Winter Ale. This beer is sweeter than the brown or Oktoberfest and weighs in at 6% abv. It's very rich and shows a touch of caramely butterscotch. Their IPA has this same character. I suggested it might be diacetyl, which isn't a bad thing, but Mr. Oliver denies it. While their ale yeast strain is English, he says it's a very clean fermenter and the butterscotch character is probably due to the use of floor malted Maris Otter. Either way, it's a good character. The IPA is a nice, well balanced example of the style.

But if you're into full malt assault, the Black Chocolate Stout is probably more your speed. A massive double stout whose name betrays its size. This beer stands proud at 10.1% abv. It competes with the best double stouts made in the US today. Put it up against Bell's Expedition, Victory Storm King, Stone Imperial Stout, or a nice piece of German chocolate cake. Chocolate matzo perhaps? And Garret Oliver has been making this beer using the same recipe for more than twelve years, before Victory or Stone were even around.

Two massive brewery cats patrol the grounds for mice. Friendly cats, unless you're a mouse in the grain. When the newest addition to the brewery arrived recently, the cats inspected every inch of it. A big Italian bottling line, for corking and caging 750ml bottles. Exciting. When we visited, the first batch had just come off the line and was sitting in the warm room undergoing 100% natural refermentation in the bottle. I say 100% because it turns out that the vast majority of Belgian style beers (and most Belgian brewed beers) that claim to be naturally carbonated are actually filtered and force carbonated before they get to the bottles. A small dose of yeast and sugar are then added simply to complete the carbonation process.

But not with Brooklyn's new Local One. This new beer is a large Belgian style brew that packs a punch at 9.2% abv. It's very pale with a hefty carbonation that hadn't even developed fully yet when we tried it. A medium perceived sweetness fades quickly to a bone dry finish where a hint of a sharp, citric pin prick lingers. Lots of fermentation character up front with both fruit and spices. An interesting, traditional beer that will hopefully make it out to Indiana.

So watch for Brooklyn soon. It should be widely available after the first of the year.