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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Putting their Brett foot forward

Rick Bonino

The Belgian IPA is a decidedly American concept, combining the spicy, fruity notes of Belgian yeast strains with the big, aggressive, citrusy-piney profiles of U.S. hops.

In recent years, some brewers have taken the idea a step further by using the baddest of all Belgian yeasts in their IPAs: Brettanomyces (“Brett” for short), which provides the funky barnyard flavors found in traditional sours.

The first local example has arrived in Ramblin Road’s new Wild IPA (6.5 percent alcohol by volume, 85 International Bitterness Units). While it uses the same hops as the brewery’s regular IPA – Simcoe, Cascade and Centennial – fermentation with Brett Trois yeast produces a completely different beer.

You can tell from the first whiff of intense tropical mango and pineapple aromas. That’s also what you taste up front, but it’s soon overtaken by a pronounced, but not overpowering spicy-piney bitterness that coats the mouth and lingers in the finish, balanced by some Brett tartness.

Stone Brewing released its own Brett IPA today, dubbed Enjoy After 12.26.15 (7, 70). That’s a twist on the California brewery’s usual Enjoy By series of strong IPAs (12.26.14 is in the market now), which emphasizes that the beer should be drunk fresh to enhance its hop character.

The Enjoy After, dosed with Brett following fermentation with a more standard Belgian yeast, encourages the opposite – aging the beer for a year or more, to allow complex flavors to develop. And while older beers tend to lose hop character as the hops oxidize, Brett is known for eating oxygen, which should help counteract that.

Ramblin’ Road has another Brett beer due around the first of the year, a fruity red that was soured with lactobacillus bacteria in the brew kettle, then fermented with two types of Brett.

In the meantime, there’s still some of the limited-release Smoked Molasses Saison (6.5, 12), with a subtle smokiness from Munich malt hand-smoked over applewood, and a rum-like richness from the molasses, though it still finishes crisp and dry.

And the Randall offering for this week is a rather festive Belgian dubbel (7, 20) poured through fresh mint and cacao nibs – holly jolly, indeed.