Long before the lager boom, before slushies, before seltzers (THC or otherwise), and before the haze-craze swept through the industry, there was a period of time when the answer to bringing more people into breweries was Belgian-style beer.
For drinkers, Belgian-style beers were the antithesis of the West Coast IPA: smooth and drinkable, with a certain sophisticated complexity. And the mental images they invoked—of farmhouses in the Belgian countryside and monks in abbeys following recipes handed down over hundreds of years—were undeniably fun. From a technical perspective, they also had a certain appeal to brewers who were accustomed to the “go big or go home” philosophy that drove the IPA wars and the mainstreaming of the imperial stout. Belgian-style beers promised different yeasts, with different characteristics, and the ability to add random shit to the kettle (herbs, spices, extra sugar, etc.). And oh, did I mention they could be incredibly boozy as well? It seemed like a win-win for everyone.
Sadly, Belgian-style beer largely fizzled out in the North American craft beer scene along with many concurrent attempts to “elevate” craft beer à la wine: pairing events, the idea of a “cicerone” (basically a sommelier for beer), and the “big brown bottle.” This was a mistake. We should have never moved on. We have to go back. So, this month we’re doin’ the best Belgian-style beers in Minnesota. Consider it my retvrn moment.
Wooden Ship Brewing Co: Basil Lemongrass Saison
Saison / 4.5% ABV / ?? IBU
I’ve written before about how much I love saisons. And, I’ve even featured a saison from Wooden Ship before (Whatever’s Saisonal). There’s just something about them—light and refreshing, but often with interesting phenolic and “spiced” notes. It’s these notes that I imagine motivate breweries like Linden Hills’ Wooden Ship to experiment with layering in their own flavors. In this case, basil and lemongrass. However, I must admit that I had seen this beer on tap at Wooden Ship previously and passed it up. Basil and lemongrass? In a saison? What is this, a curry?
The answer is… well, yes. Kind of. But in a good way. This saison has the traditional saison yeast aroma (phenolic, a little tart), along with lemongrass and a hint of basil. The basil and lemongrass come through a lot more on the palate—in pretty equal measure—along with a light tart edge. It’s also lightly bready with no perceptible bitterness. It’s very drinkable, and I made my way through a can of this much faster than I initially thought I would. I will say, however, that if you burp while drinking this, you will be convinced you just had a big ole plate of Thai food. It’s really uncanny—if not necessarily unwelcome.
Blacklist Brewing Co.: Or de Belgique
“Belgian Golden Strong Ale” / 7.5% ABV / ?? IBU
Or de Belgique by Duluth’s Blacklist Brewing Co. is my favorite Belgian-style beer in Minnesota. I featured it once before, earlier in my tenure as Minnesota’s professional beer mom, and used the opportunity to talk about how gay I am for Belgian-style beers (very gay, if you’re wondering). But I didn’t actually talk much about its flavor.
Or de Belgique has a fruity (estery) aroma, common to a lot of Belgian-style strong ales, skewing banana. It tastes like sweet, overripe banana and malt with a bit of a tart bite on the finish. Blacklist bills this beer as a “perfect beverage to accompany a special night out” on the its Untappd listing, but I think that’s underselling it. I’ll drink this beer anytime, anywhere. I’ve even found that it pairs remarkably well with Cheez-Its—an elevated pairing, for sure. And, one of the things I really like about Or de Belgique is that, like Cheez-Its, it’s consistently available in the metro. All three of my go-to liquor stores stock it (South Lyndale, Zipps, and Ombibulous), which is almost unheard of outside of flagship IPAs these days.
That in and of itself should tell you how good this beer is. Buy it and drink it. If you don’t like it, know that you are wrong, and there may be no salvaging your palate at this point. You might as well just eat gruel for the rest of your life, because apparently you’re unable to enjoy nice things.
Pen Name Fermentation Project: Sharon's Bier
Saison / 5% ABV / 25 IBU
Wild Mind Ales is no more, but the south Minneapolis brewery's spirit lives on in former Wild Mind brewer Mat Waddell, who started up Pen Name Fermentation Project as a “residency” at St. Louis Park’s Haggard Barrel in January of last year and recently moved the operation to St. Paul’s Wandering Leaf.
Waddell is fermenting in foeders, which are wood fermentation tanks. If you’re not a sour-puss (affectionate), foeders are often used for mixed fermentation (meaning more than one type of yeast/bacteria) and are often avoided due to the difficulty of fully purging lingering microbes between styles. But in this case, that’s a feature, not a bug.
Sharon’s Bier is a mixed fermentation saison. This is a departure from modern Belgian saisons, which are fermented almost entirely with traditional brewers yeast (saccharomyces), but is more in-line with how historical saisons were brewed. The result is much funkier and more complex.
Sharon’s Bier smells like tart sour funk, citrus, and green apple. Its flavor is crisp with funk and apple and citrus notes blending in with oak. It’s almost winelike, and very complex. Unlike sours, the tartness here only builds slightly as you drink it, leaving it a good “thinkin’” beer.
Voyageur Brewing Co.: Trailbreaker Belgian Wheat
“Belgian Style Wit Ale” / 5% ABV / 15 IBU
I can’t talk about Belgian-style beers without a nod to the classic witbier. Good old approachable witbier, you’ve convinced many a middle-aged man that he’s a sophisticate with your mild, crowd-pleasing complexity. Witbiers are traditionally brewed with coriander and orange peel (which amplifies the “spicy” elements of the yeasts typically used), but Grand Marais’ Voyageur went ahead and added cardamom—that spice your Scandinavian aunt adds to all her baked goods—to the mix as well.
Trailbreaker is a solid witbier. It smells lightly like wheat and cloves, and its flavor is an even sweetness with notes of citrus clove and cardamom. While there is complexity here, it’s not going to fight you any. True to name, Trailbreaker would be a great beer to drink while recovering from an expedition up to the Boundary Waters, or while sitting around swapping canoe-building tips.
Klockow Brewing Co.: Billy-Bumbler
“Belgian Style Tripel Ale” / 8% ABV / ?? IBU
I’m not sure what it is about breweries “Up North” that leads them to produce more Belgian-style beers than the rest of the state, but I’m not going to complain about it. I featured Billy-Bumbler in my March 2024 column and bemoaned only picking up one can of the Grand Rapids-brewed beer at the time. Thankfully, I was able to fix that mistake at Ombibulous recently, where I grabbed a whole four pack.
Billy-Bumbler, I have to assume, was named after the Billy-Bumblers of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. In the series, Billy-Bumblers are a sort of hyper-intelligent dog-raccoon, and are an artifact of what things were like “before the world moved on.” And, you could say the same of Billy-Bumbler the beer—not the dog-raccoon part, but the other part about the world moving on. It has a solid banana and clove aroma, though its flavor veers more towards clove, with a mild bitterness. At 8% ABV, the booze is perceptible but not overpowering, and provides a nice encouragement to slow down a little and remember the face of your father. (This joke is for the nerds. If you don’t get it, don’t look it up—you’ll risk falling down The Dark Tower rabbit hole).
