Raise A Glass…“Ridgeline"
Written By: M. Thomas
Raise a glass… of “Ridgeline,” a Maibock aged in oak Chardonnay barrels by Albright Grove Brewing Company
An innovative beer can change your mind. It’s almost a physical change, brought on by a novel combination of flavors and sensations, from to pour to nose, mouth to mind. It begins with eye-catching color pouring from the tap. It wafts from the foaming glint in the glass to the nose. It sparkles on the tongue. Each bursting bubble ignites new neural connections.
The craft.
How do you make a truly new beer? The basic ingredients of beer have already been recombined into hundreds, if not thousands of styles over the centuries. The iconic styles of Bavaria in southeastern Germany, restricted by the famous 1516 Reinheitsgebot to the use of only barley, hops, water, and yeast, exemplify the variety that even the simplest ingredients may yield, from the golden tint of effervescent lagers to the burnished ruby of weighty doppelbocks.
Modern brewing has codified traditional styles, revived forgotten beers, and created new brews with the introduction of new ingredients, processes, and techniques. Today’s beer style guidelines published by the Brewers Association (nearly 160 styles) and the Beer Judge Certification Program (over 100 styles) reflect modern brewing’s increasing openness to the full gamut of brewing history and to contemporary innovations.
A lot of the novelty in craft brewing comes from the use of new ingredients, from hyper-local expressions of terroir (the French term for how the growing qualities of a locale render as flavor) through wild yeast strains and foraged ingredients, to distinctly modern gimmicks like peanut butter or breakfast cereal.
But the basic ingredients of beer have evolved over time, too. Malting has developed such that grains yield sugar faster and in greater quantity than before. (These grains are ”highly modified,” to use the technical term). New hop varieties are always in development. And there are new methods for using classic ingredients, too, such as the focus on hop aroma and flavor, rather than bitterness, that characterizes New England IPA and other hazy ales.
Updated implementations of time-honored techniques have also made an impact. The surge in sour beer means that terms like “foeder” (Dutch for an extremely large barrel used for aging liquor) and “solera” (a Spanish barrel aging technique first developed for making sherry) are now a common part of the beer lexicon. These practices suggest not only that breweries are looking for ways to stand out, but that craft brewing is well-enough established economically to invest in the long production process of aged beers on a larger scale.
So, making something new requires historical knowledge and technical savvy. More than that, however, making something new requires an intuition of new tastes and sensations, a creative insight that turns knowledge of what has been into the possibility of what can be.
The liquid.
Albright Grove’s “Ridgeline” is the product of a beautifully simple, yet still dizzying insight, combining a traditional style with one simple added step: a few months of aging in an oak chardonnay barrel.
I would hazard a guess that Maibock and chardonnay have never been previously closer than on the back of a restaurant menu. The worlds of wine and beer have long seemed quite distant to American drinkers, but the reality is that they have grown closer in recent years. Still, there is the question of flavor. Maibock is a fairly dry but still full-bodied lager with as much as 7.5% alcohol by volume, complemented by a solid backbone of traditional German hop flavors that can span floral, herbal, and spice qualities. Chardonnay is a classic French white grape that fell into some critical disrepute when growers in California began aging chardonnay in new oak barrels in the 1980s, producing a big, boozy wine with a buttery smoothness that most American consumers still associate with chardonnay.
And yet – and yet – I repeat myself because I remain so surprised, so pleasantly surprised: “Ridgeline” proves that a nearly alchemical transformation is possible from this combination of distinct elements. This begins with their specific take on the Maibock. Coppery-orange in color and 6.2% ABV, the Maibock base has slightly less alcohol, a more amber color, and a touch more malt sweetness, compared to the style on average. These slight variations make for a somewhat gentler beer that is more amenable to the barrel aging process and the layers of flavors it adds to the beer.
Each sip of Ridgeline – or gulp, as the beer is quite refreshing, despite its complexity – parades flavors one following another that change as swiftly as a chemical reaction. Grape comes through on the nose, not just sweetness, but the funkiness of unfiltered must with juice, skins, and seeds. The first sip delivers a hint of caramel-like malt sweetness. But before the tongue can fully register the Maibock, the barrel bubbles through with a tingly effervescence that delivers the same earthy mustiness that tempers grape sugars. A hint of sourness then flashes by, akin to the flavors lent by lactobacillus fermentation. At last, the finish delivers a flavor that I can only describe as whatever mysterious fruit would grow from crossing barley and grapes. It’s pithy, like an orange rind, and mildly bitter, with a sour, wine-like character but the sweetness of honeydew. The whole sequence has the oaken smoothness of American chardonnay, best detected in the body, without any overwhelming buttery-ness. Just beneath sits a complementary sharpness of German yeast. (Thanks to Albright Grove bartender Stephen for pointing this out to me.)
It will not be surprising, given this complexity, that Ridgeline is mercurial. It will taste different depending what you drank or ate before or with it; it will live on differently in your memory depending on what you have after it. So, you may well be left doing as I have, trying to find the words for novel but fleeting sensations.
“You are an alchemist; make gold of that,” the eponymous character of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens says to a poet friend who is seeking patronage for monetary gain. Timon may be dismissive of poetry as a means to an end, but poetry can be alchemical in its own right, transmuting words into art. Ridgeline proves that brewing can be too, turning the base matter of grains, hops, yeast, and water – and sometimes the wood of a fine barrel, too – not just into a beer, but into a unique sensory experience.
Written by M. Thomas
