Friends:
On this dreary afternoon, we're excited to announce a very special beer event that we will be hosting throughout this holiday season. It's our pleasure to bring you "Tannenbaum: a Celebration of Old World Strong Ales," an event that will run from November 21 through December 31. During that period of time, we'll be dedicating five or six of our 14 taps to rare (and delicious) European strong ales from Belgium, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, and Italy, and decking out our tavern to resemble a European winter wonderland.
After careful experimentation with some of the world's best scientists, we've concluded that the best way to cope with the pressures of gift lists, travel planning, actual travel, family functions, work-holiday-parties, rampant consumerism, and ugly sweater competitions is to drink a beer north of 8.0% alcohol by volume. We'd like to share the results of our research with you, fair consumer.
Let's get down to brass tacks. We're REALLY excited to announce this concept -- we're going to be be pouring some of the best beers in the world for those six weeks -- and we want you to start revving your engines too. To help you build that same excitement (and because we have a few kegs that are burning holes in our pockets), we're going to tap a really special keg that is in the spirit of our event every Friday, starting TONIGHT.
So, without further ado, I bring you the nectar of the gods, a beer named after a canonized cat, and Switzerland's contribution to the world that surpasses its watches, knives, and bank accounts. I bring you 2015 Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien from the Swiss brewery Brasserie des Franches Montagne.
Let's first talk about the brewery. Brasserie des Franches Montagne, or BFM for short, is located in Northwest Switzerland in the mountains on its French border. It was opened by its master brewer Jérôme Rebetez in 1997 with the stated goal "to create beers that are comparable to better wines." He has succeeded in that regard, and few of his beers are a better example of that success than Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien.
Saint Bon-Chien is a strong sour ale, fermented with wine yeast, then placed into eight different wine, grappa, and whiskey casks for a minimum of 12 months, not just to pick up some of the character of the barrels, but also to begin secondary fermentation with new cultures. The results from each cask are carefully blended for an incredibly rounded product that treads the line between port, beer, and wine to make a unique strong ale that registers at a (very sneaky) 11% abv. What's more? The beer was named after the brewery cat, who the brewery claims to have canonized after its death, and, look, who are we to argue. Why was the cat named "Good Dog," in French? I don't know. You get the sense that these guys have to sample a lot of the product in the blending process.
Regardless, this is a special beer. A VERY special beer. And you should probably come have one tonight if you give a shit about all things holy (including canonized cats named after dogs).
See you at the Independent!
Pete
