Spicy and fruity beers

Cheers, Sept, 2005

As Britain served as inspiration for the development of the I2PA, so has Belgium motivated America's brewers to venture into uncharted territory with regard to exotic ingredients. Because when it comes to flavorings beyond the hop, it all starts with krieks (traditional Belgian cherry beers) and coriander (Belgium's most popular brewing spice) and ends, well, it doesn't seem to have an end at all!

So commonplace are fruit beers today that they barely rate inclusion under the "extreme beer" heading. Minor classics like Celis Raspberry from Michigan Brewing, Bell's Cherry Stout from that same state's Kalamazoo Brewing and New Glarus Brewing's Wisconsin Belgian Red, a forcefully fruity cherry ale, have brought the once-ridiculed concept of the fruit beer to the masses and won considerable praise for their efforts.

It is not in the spirit of American craft brewing to take a single step when dozens may be trod, though, so in addition to cherry and raspberry beers, we have a host of mainly ales flavored with all manner of ingredients. On Long Island, NY, Phil Markowski, brewer at the Southampton Publick House, has "hopped" his deliciously floral Cuvee des Fleurs with a veritable bouquet of edible flowers. And in an early example of "extreme" seasonings, in 1998, North Carolina's Olde Hickory Brewing Company brought to the Great American Beer Festival their Wataga Tobacco Stout, flavored with leaves from the state's infamous cash crop.

But even tobacco and flowers are minor league stuff when compared to some modern "witch's brews," such as the Cambridge (MA) Brewing Company's insanely complex Benevolence, a 12 percent alcohol ale that incorporates, among other things, honey, sour cherries, three different yeasts and a Jack Daniels barrel. Or the aptly-named Four From Maine's Allagash Brewing Company, crafted from four malts, four varieties of hop and four types of sugar, and fermented with--you guessed it--four individual strains of Belgian yeast.

All of which goes to show that whatever else it might be, extremism in the pursuit of good beer is definitely no vice. And that sometimes being assaulted by a mid-western behemoth can be a good thing, particularly if it's a beautifully hoppy, 9.5 percent alcohol power-house by the name of Three Floyds Dreadnaught Imperial IPA.