If you want an intense, complex beer that is fairly low in alcohol and perfect for slow sipping, try the Chapeau Lambic.
Tim Wisserman of Mariner Beverages told me the beers were coming to Maine, and he held celebrations of the arrival last month at Vignola in Portland and Lion’s Pride in Brunswick, attended by owner and brewmaster Pauwel Raes.
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I missed the events, unfortunately, but when I saw the lambics at RSVP on Forest Avenue in Portland while looking for something to write about this week, I picked up a Framboise.
Lambic is an ancient kind of Belgian beer in which the wort — beer before it is fermented — is left in shallow containers in open air, where yeast that is naturally in the air causes the beer to ferment. Kriek, or cherry, is the oldest and most famous type of fruit lambic, but Nancy and I both prefer raspberries, so I went with the Framboise.
The bottle had both a regular bottle cap and a cork, so if you take this on a trip, make sure you have both kinds of openers.
The Framboise was a beautiful rose color with moderate carbonation. The raspberry aroma flavor was intense, with a strong malt background. The literature says it is oak aged; I did not catch that, but it probably added to the complexity. It’s 3.5 percent alcohol.
Nancy and I both loved it. The price is $6.79 for a 12-ounce bottle, but as a treat, this is worth it.
In addition to Kriek and Framboise, other flavors available include — based on the pictures, because the names are written in French — pineapple, banana, peach, strawberry, apricot and plum. There are others on the company website, but I didn’t see them at RSVP.
ON THE SAME RSVP TRIP, I spotted a 25-ounce bottle of Lion Stout brewed in Sri Lanka, a beer that I had several times years ago and loved. It was as good as I remember. It is a strong, simple, straightforward stout at 8.8 percent alcohol. It has an excellent body and flavors of chocolate and coffee malt, with the hops in the background. At $3.59 for what amounts to a double bottle, it is a bargain.
SEBAGO BREWING CO.’S first true lager showed up at its pubs last Friday, and because I am so dedicated to my job, I showed up and tried it the first day.
Sebago made a California common ale in June with lager yeast, but fermented it at higher temperatures.
Its Octoberfest is a true lager. It was brewed last March, as are all traditional Octoberfest or Maarzen beers, and stored at 33 degrees in September. It is an unfiltered beer that poured a little cloudy and had a slightly off-white head. With the first sip, I was impressed with the complex maltiness of this beer, and the hops hit later. It’s 6.1 percent alcohol.
This isn’t a traditional Octoberfest — a little bit bigger in all aspects — but it is still a very good beer. It’s available only at Sebago’s brew pubs.
I TRIED A COUPLE of beers from Shaw’s recently that probably are store brands, mostly because I have never seen them anywhere else.
Buck Range Light was on sale a while ago at $6 for a 12-pack, a price that goes back a lot of years in my beer-drinking life. I purchased it just because I wanted to know what a beer that cost that little would taste like.
It is made by Dundee Brewing Co. in Rochester, N.Y., which is part of Genesee. I like (but don’t love) some of Dundee’s beers — it’s most known for Honey Brown Ale — but I was not expecting much, because the packaging was designed to imitate Miller Lite.
Buck Range tasted like a watered-down Lite. You can taste a vaguely beer-like flavor, and there is nothing offensively bad. It’s just flavorless.
R.J. King Wingwalker Ale — which comes as pale ale, amber and lager — is always $11.99 a 12-pack, but sometimes that is described as a sale price. These beers are drinkable, especially after a day in the garden, but they just aren’t overly complex. The packaging says these beers also are brewed in Rochester, but the website says LaCrosse, Wis.
Tom Atwell can be contacted at 791-6362 or at:
tatwell@pressherald.com
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