For years, Miller High Life has used the “Champagne of Beers” slogan. Last April in Belgium, that appropriation became impossible to swallow. At the request of the trade body defending the interests of houses and growers of the northeastern French sparkling wine, Belgian customs crushed more than 2,000 cans of Miller High Life advertised as such. The Comité Champagne asked for the destruction of a shipment of 2,352 cans on the grounds that the century-old motto used by the American brewery infringes the protected designation of origin “Champagne.” And while it is kind of funny in its own American-branding, ham-fisted way, there are plenty of beers out there that are designed to have the same effervescent effect as bubbly. Since today marks National Bubbly Day, Peaks & pints resents an in-house flight of bubbly beer _ a flight we’re calling Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: National Bubbly Day.
Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: National Bubbly Day
Dwinell Faith Healer
3.8% ABV, can
Located about 115 miles east of Portland in the far reaches of the Columbia River Gorge, Dwinell Country Ales began its brewing operations back in the summer of 2017. Since then, the brewery has expanded from its original wild ales to include more traditional beers. Their Faith Healer Brett Lager is a light, dry, zesty, and super effervescent spelt lager brewed with Perle hops and conditioned with Brettanomyces. Expect rustic oak, earthy hops, lemon pits, grains, and hay on the nose, followed by oak, grass, hay, lemon zest, white grape, and wild yeast.
Oakshire Sun Made Fruit Fusion Sour
4.5% ABV, can
Berliner weisses have been called “The Champagne of the North” as far back as the Napoleonic era. The only thing we like better than a traditional Berliner weisse — a mildly sour German wheat beer named for the city where it was born — is a traditional effervescent Berliner weisse with blueberries and Meyer lemons. Oakshire Brewing‘s Sun Made is a Berliner that requires no syrup to get that extra layer of flavor. Inspired by 10 Barrel’s Crush series, the Eugene brewery starts with their Sun Made base and sour it with their lactobacillus culture. It is then fermented with their yeast strain for a clean and tart ale. After fermentation, they blend in sweet blueberry and tart lemon puree.
Rodenbach Grand Cru
6% ABV, 35 IBU, draft
Flanders red ale is a style of sour ale brewed in West Flanders, Belgium. Flanders red ale is aged in oak barrels with Lactobacillus and Brettanomyces that add yogurt tang and barnyard notes and Acetobacter, which is the bacteria that creates vinegar. Consequently, Flanders red ales have sharp acidic, vinegar notes. Coming out of west Flanders is the World Beer Cup gold medal-winning Rodenbach Grand Cru, a blend of “young” beer (33%) and an older beer (67%) that has matured in oak vats. It is the high percentage of the older ripened-in-oak beer that gives it the complex and intense bouquet with strong, tart apples notes, prickly effervescence on the sides of the mouth, and a long aftertaste like a Grand Cru wine. The late Michael Jackson bestowed upon this beer the titles of “World Classic” and “the Burgundy of Belgium.”
Stillwater Extra Loud
7% ABV, draft – can in our cooler
Stillwater’s India pale saison ale Extra Loud brewed with Japanese rice is a collaboration with Dubfire, an Iranian American house and techno DJ and producer. It has effervescent carbonation, right for the style, that is quite prickly. The nose hits with pineapple, mango, and light pine with sweet honey malts and yeasty white breaded notes. Flavors exceed the nose with light cracker, honey, mango, pineapple, pine, and yeasty notes amongst herbal hits. It’s a lovely, hoppy saison.
Block 15 Revolve 2023
11% ABV, bottle
In celebration of their 15th anniversary in April, Block 15 Brewing brought back this Bière de Champagne brewed Northwest-grown grains cellared two years with Brettanomyces in peach brandy barrels and bottled, riddled, and discouraged in the méthode traditionnelle. Expect fruity peachy and sweet, but tart and wild yeast funky goodness with an amazingly thick mouthfeel and effervescent.
LINK: Peaks & Pints cooler inventory
