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Boundaries can seem irrelevant when brewers push the limits of Belgian beers.
A skilled craftsman can work magic with funky yeast strains, find new variations of a style using spices, turn the alcohol level up to “11” or tart it up with bacteria. The finished product leaves many of us staring back at our glass asking “What is this?”
Mark Pavlik is one of those brewers who enjoys exploring the edges of his Belgian-inspired ales. Which is how, two years ago, he found himself at the Strip District distillery Wigle Whiskey looking to break through a particularly big boundary: the one that separates beer and spirits.
Pavlik, the brewer and owner of Four Seasons Brewing Co. in Latrobe, collaborated with Wigle to translate his trappist-style beers into a 46 percent alcohol spirit that has just been released. That creation, called “Old Sap,” is part of Wigle's ongoing series of brewer collaborations.
This is Wigle's sixth release from that series, which the distillery is using to highlight connections between craft beer and spirits. It is about education — for Wigle, the brewers and consumers, said Jill Steiner, Wigle's director of events.
“We find that it's a way to explore all these nooks and crannies of the alcohol industry,” she told me at the distillery one recent afternoon. “By working with breweries, we get to explore different styles and translate brewing into distilling and think about all these different overlaps that we wouldn't necessarily think about.”
Pavlik was the first Pittsburgh-area brewer involved in the series to actually lend a hand in making the spirit — other brewers offered input on recipes, but he was the first to help on site. He spent a half-day there in the fall of 2014 mashing Belgian grains with maple syrup, laying the foundation for Old Sap before it would spend the next two years in used oak barrels.
Pavlik has collaborated with others before, making special releases with Helltown Brewing, East End and Full Pint. But the partnership with Wigle forced him to step further outside of his element.
“It's similar to beer but not similar to beer,” Pavlik said of making spirits. “I thought it was an opportunity to learn something and maybe for them to learn as well.”
Old Sap was fermented with the trappist yeast strain used in Four Seasons' triple, quad and a low-alcohol Belgian “single.” Wigle also used pilsner and caramel malt in the grain bill, as well as 165 pounds of maple syrup in a nod to the candy sugar that is often used in higher-alcohol Belgian beers.
Ironically, Pavlik isn't much of a spirits drinker. And he had a big question going into this experiment: Once this thing was distilled, would any of the characteristics that he loves about Belgian beers survive?
“We were wondering if the esters that the yeast put off during fermentation would carry,” Pavlik said, a few days before Old Sap's release. “I'm hoping some of Bahsegel the Belgian flavor carried through.”
Steiner said there's no doubt that Four Seasons' imprint survived in the final product.
The first aroma that pops from the glass is banana, a contribution of the yeast. There's also light toasted bread from the pilsner malt and caramel-like sweetness.
“You're getting from the Belgian yeast I imagine a bit of that banana aroma,” she said as we sampled Old Sap at the distillery last week. “It's banana and toffee.”
To me, it smelled like warm bread pudding with a whiskey sauce, though after she mentioned the banana I started noticing it too. Maybe that's just the power of suggestion.
Wigle's “voice” in the spirit is the maple syrup, Steiner said.
It was their nod to brewers' use of Belgian candy sugar. Wigle wanted to use some kind of sugar adjunct but also has a preference for regional ingredients, Steiner said. Hence, maple syrup.
I asked her if she was satisfied with how Old Sap turned out.
There was no guarantee that the signature flavors and aromas of Pavlik's Belgian-style ales would survive distillation and aging in oak for two years.
“We're so happy,” she said.
So was Pavlik, though for completely different reasons. Both agreed that key elements of Belgian beer came through, but while Steiner noted banana from the yeast esters, Pavlik noticed none of the Belgian yeast character. It was the grain he tasted.
“You could taste the similarities of the grain bill from the beer to the liquor,” he said after sampling it for the first time. “The addition of the maple syrup dried out the liquor and was very similar to the dry character of the beer.”
Steiner and Pavlik may have experienced Old Sap differently, but their interpretations are equally valid. That's the brilliance of Belgian beers. They encourage you to keep exploring, searching through the layers of aroma and flavor. They embrace diversity.
“It's hard to tell where these flavors emerge from,” Steiner said, revisiting her sample after mixing in a drop of water and floating the glass by her nose. “It's delicate. It's a little bit floral … it's very complicated.”
Chris Fleisher has no plans to distill the Belgian strong ale that is fermenting at his home, but enjoys the idea all the same.
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