Have you ever been in the situation where everyone seems to be in on the deal and you're not?
It can be a bit embarrassing.
I felt a bit of that at this year's Mondial de le Bière. I'm raving about Kuhnhenn's Brewing Co.'s beers, thinking the company is making its debut at Montreal's beer festival only to find out they were here last year, the brewery's been around since 2002 and I'm only just now cottoning on to the fact that this brewery in Warren, Mich., just a bit north of Detroit, makes some stupendous beers.
The brewer and owner, Bret Kuhnhenn -- he stands about six foot, has a slim goatee, a beer lover's bod, but a voice that is at once both proud and humble -- was present at the Mondial, at Windsor Station, on Thursday. We talked a bit about the beers he brought up for the festival. I asked him about Simcow Silly, which I found had a pronounced - if not profound - hops aftertaste. "It doesn't seem to fit any kind of style," I said.
And he agreed. It's a bit amorphous. It's a bit of a Belgian golden ale but with a lot of American hop character. It also has a decent citrus-y taste to it that was most agreeable.
Also available was the ale called "9." This Scotch ale-like beer is advertised as being 9.2 per cent in alcohol, but according to Kuhnhenn is probably about 12 per cent or 13 per cent. Regardless: It's a lot less sweet than th e alcohol content would suggest.
The India Pale Ale is made with five different hops, most prominent being Horizon and Columbus (with a bit of Cascade). And you can tell, too. The bitterness begins with the first nose-full and lingers straight through the finish.
Later, I tried Kuhnhenn's Fourth Dementia, which is described as being an Olde Ale. I'm not sure if in this case Olde means Alt -- perhaps not, because this beer is quite heady. But it is caramelly-sweet, and, you know, that's a good thing.
The surprise of the festival, however, is Kuhnhenn's Raspberry Eisbock, which is kind of Belgian (even though it's made with Munich malt). The beer is aged more than a year. The particular vintage available at the Mondial is 2004. On the nose: huge huge fruit and big-time chocolate. On the palate, same thing. This is a beer that doesn't let up. Thirteen-per-cent alcohol with taste like your wife's bestest brownies with a raspberry coulis and crème fraiche.
Lastly, Kuhnhenn also offered at the Mondial a beer it called Crème Brulée Java Stout: Lots to live up to in that name! The coffee is pronounced, as one would expect. The crème brulée arrives in the aftertaste, when the bitterness kind of dissolves into sweetness.
So that was my big Mondial discovery this year. Here, in no particular order, are some of the other beers sampled this year.
From the Brasserie Saint-Sylvestre, makes of 3 Monts and an incredible winter beer, is the spicy Biere Nouvelle 2006, which is winter-brewed using the last harvest of malts and hops.
I've been meaning to try Bierbrier, a 5-per-cent alcohol amber-coloured ale from Bierbrier of Montreal for some time now. The brewery is less than a year old and, though its flagship ale is rather humdrum, there's just enough colour and balance in the beer to suggest the brewer has promise.
Hollbeer of Riquewihr, France, is a bière blanche of 5.5 per cent. Hollbeer has bought into the whole sour-beer tradition, which is probably more popular in France and Belgium than it is here or in the United States, and this white beer is an exceptional example of that tradition. This is so sour it's as if the brewer had dropped lemons into the mash tun. Whoa!
Another sour beer available at the Mondial is Rodenbach's Red Bach beer. This one has more than a hint of cherry (one beer taster I met said it reminded him of cough syrup, though I'd say that's rather extreme for an honest-to-goodness kriek).
The Jolly Pumpkin brewery from Dexter, Mich., has a bière de garde called La Roja, with about 7.2 per cent alcohol. Imagine that: a U.S. brewer making a Flemish beer with a Spanish moniker. Only magic can come out of that. And this is, with caramel hints and fruity spice.
Jolly Pumpkin also makes a Bière de Mars, which (and I guess this is because of the oak-barrell aging process) has a unique Jack Daniels kind of finish to it.
May Bock (a lager) comes from Southampton Brewery in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.:
This is a fair to good beer that was the first grab of Stephen Beaumont, the Toronto-based beer author, when I caught up with him Wednesday night.
Stephen was the point man this year in putting together the Mondial's exclusive beer dinner. He said his initial involvement was bringing Jeanne Marois, the Mondial president, together with Brian Morin, executive chef of Toronto's Beer Bistro. Based on that successful get-together, however, Stephen ended up doing the pairings of for the beer dinner, which, this year, is being held Saturday night.
Les bières de gardes seem to be popular at the Mondial this year. La Choulette, a French brewery from Ostrevant, has one with about 7.5 per cent alcohol. Certainly worth seeking out and then familiarizing yourself with the remainder of the Choulette family.
The Fat Pig Brewery -- how does that translate into French? well, if you said Gros Cochon, then you just must be bilingual -- has a lager out on the Montreal market now. The brewery is based in Utica and has teamed up with a "brewery" here to promote this rather inocuous beer. Try it if you want.
Though I'd suggest that your time and tastebuds are better utilized elsewhere.
Like Aventinus Weizen Eisbock! This 12 per cent beer from Kelheim, Germany (deep in Bavaria) has incredible spicy caramel notes and is on the Top 10 list of beer tasters around the world.
Lastly, there's the Dogfish Head Festina Lente, which, as the name suggests, should be drunk between Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, is a peach gueuze with about 7 per cent alcohol content. You catch the acidic notes on the nose and that lasts through the après-gout, but then something surprising happens: an Easter-ish resurrection on the tastebuds, a holy mellowness.
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