Stan Hieronymus

Session #42: It wasn’t the beer, it was the silence

The SessionFor the 42nd gathering of The Session Derrick Peterman asks we write about “A Special Place, A Special Beer.” Visit his blog for a recap of all the posts.

I told this story in Brew Like a Monk. This is the condensed version.

Inside the brewery café at the monastery of the Saint Benedictus Abbey of Achel, only a single food server and one monk putting items on his cafeteria tray remained when Marc Beirens opened the door and stepped into a chilly December evening.

Beirens, a businessman who has been visiting monasteries since he was a child, took a few strides into a terrace area that was once the abbey’s courtyard. As the sky above turned from dark blue to black, he nodded back toward the brewery, located in a space that once housed the monastery dairy, then to a new gallery and gift shop to his right. Those buildings held pigs and more cattle, before it became obvious agriculture would not sustain the community.

“You should have seen this all a few years ago,” he said, his voice bouncing lightly about an otherwise silent courtyard.

*****

During the next few hours Beirens and Brother Benedict, the monk in charge of marketing when I visited in December of 2004 gave me a complete tour of the monastery and its small brewery. Always a good host, Brother Benedict insisted I try the beers.

Staring with Extra, a substantial 9.5% beauty served from a 750ml bottle. He didn’t drink himself, talking a little business with Beirens, answering my questions about the monastery, and excusing himself after his cell phone rang. He returned a little later. “This is the same bottle?” he asked, knowing the answer was yes. “You don’t like the beer.” He laughed mightily.

He ordered we have another, then headed off again. Both Beirens and I ordered the Achel 5, a blonde beer of 5.3% abv, and compared it to the 5% abv Westmalle Extra. When Brother Benedict returned, he looked at our blonde beers, working on a scowl. He took a sip of one. “Water,” he said, once again laughing.

*****

Beirens appreciates the importance of commerce to the monasteries, and that the six Trappist breweries are part of a larger family. He distributes a range of monastic products ? beer is the best selling, but they include cookies, soap, vegetables, wine, and other goods ? throughout Belgium and France. His father did the same. “I’ve been visiting monasteries since I was this high,” he said earlier, holding his hand below his waist. That’s why he understands something else about monasteries.

It was dark now, and the courtyard empty.

“I love the silence,” Beirens said. “I used to have a friend who was a monk. He’s gone now.”

We walked along in silence.

“When he was 80 or so, I’d still call him. If I had a problem I could go see him. He didn’t have to say anything and I’d feel better.

“All it took was silence.”

Excellent beer related idea of the week

The bathrooms at Sam’s Tap Room and Kitchen, which is the tap room for Red Lodge Ales Brewing Co. in the Montana town of Red Lodge, has glass holders like this one in both the men’s and women’s bathrooms.

The holders — set beside the toilets, the urinals and the sink — hold both large and small glasses. I don’t usually carry my glass with me into the bathroom, but it appears some people do.

Red Lodge Ales has the largest solar thermal array in the state of Montana up on the roof. That warms water to heat the brewery in winter (radiant floors) provides warm process water in the summer. The beer garden faces the mountains and hops plants decorate the garden walls (in season).

Did I mention the sampler trays are cool? They are. None of these delightful amenities would matter, of course, if the beer weren’t pretty damn good. It is.

Should we call it the Artisinal Trap?

Today’s New York Times has an article about artisinal ice cream. There’s that word again. The story focuses on the price of high-end (as in expensive) ice cream.

Read both pages, and not only because I guarantee Taos Cow makes great ice cream. Think about it in terms of our previous discussion.

In case you are on the fence about taking the time, a few excerpts:

  • “Since when is ice cream so expensive?” asked one mother.
  • Stefano Grom serves what may be America’s most expensive ice cream cone: $5.25, with tax, for a “small,” which works out to about $150 a pound.
  • Dairy technology has advanced to a point that consumers often can’t tell the difference. Expensive ice cream is often described as “artisanal” or “housemade,” but neither term has a meaningful definition as relates to ice cream. An “artisanal” gelato shop might only be adding water to a dry mix somewhere on the premises.

    • If you hang out here much you know I think many beers that can fairly called artisinal are underpriced. That doesn’t mean I can’t be offended when a marketer describes a product as “artisinal” just so a company can charge more.

    Found, a cowboy bar (The Mint, Sheridan, Wyoming)

    The Mint Bar in Sheridan, Wyoming, is as impressive inside as the cowboy neon out front. Although not as expansive as The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar across the state in Jackson and certainly not fancy, it holds its own on a per capita basis.

    It is not exactly classic wild west, but with your leather cowboy boots and all, this place looks like it fast.

    The place was hopping Monday evening. People come here to drink — there is no food — to talk, and many to smoke. The wall across from the bar is covered with complimentary clippings and the booths in the back are exceptional (see below).

    We knew about this place before we reached Sheridan, so this wasn’t exactly a lucky discovery. Nonetheless it surpassed expectations, including the beer — eight taps, two of them serving Alaskan Amber and New Belgium Fat Tire.

    A few links while we search for cowboy bars

    Million Dollar Cowboy BarWe’re headed north in the morning (attention burglars: somebody will be watching our house), eventually to Montana and Wyoming because my brother’s son is getting married in a week.

    While we’re off looking for cowboy neon signs hanging on old bars (maybe even old saloons) here are a few links I’ve been meaning to pass along. (The photo on the left is was taken in front of The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson, Wyoming. A place your really should visit before dropping by Snake River Brewing for excellent beer.)

  • If you can’t trust your own taste buds whose can you trust?
  • More from our trip to New Orleans and NOLA Brewing’s 7th Street Wheat, another beer that illustrates “American Wheat” should not be called a style.
  • I stuck thoughts about “cloning” Westmalle Tripel at Brew Like a Monk, but if you are curious why it tastes like it does . . .
  • Probably should have anticipated something silly like this. Seamus Campbell writes “I have learned that the August issue of Reader’s Digest borrows from our results to construct a list of ‘The Twelve Best American Beers’ — the dozen beers listed all being 9-point scorers in The Beer Trials.” And then notes why this might not be so good. “The best-scoring beers in the book are, of course, merely the best-scoring of the beers we tasted. And make no mistake, there are a lot of beers we didn’t taste.”
  • British economists say real ale drinkers offer “economic inspiration.” Don’t be put off that the report begins, “It’s not often beer drinkers are role models.”
  • I have resisted writing (and pretty much reading) about all that surrounds BrewDog’s latest. But “BrewDog’s Next Beer: Ahab’s Undoing” had me at “implanted into the abdomen of a live sperm whale.”
  • As I type this, a thread at Beer Advocate titled “Professional Brewers discuss BA and RB” has elicited 148 replies. Perhaps time for them to consider NEW BEER RULE #8: Always take beer more seriously than yourself.