For the beer nerds

On Wednesday the founder of Allagash Brewing Company came to the Goog to give a talk and lead a tasting. He brought 5 of his beers with him, and they were delish. A company chef whipped up some awesome food pairings, too - chips with bean dip, almond salad, and angel food cake with caramelized pineapples.

For those of you who don't know, my parents brewed when I was growing up, so beer nerdom is in my blood. I was totally in heaven at this talk. The founder man, Rob Tod, gave a nice history of the brewery - they do only Belgian-style beers, which caught on a bit later than the rest of the American craft beer movement.

If anyone wants more details, let me know, but for brevity's sake, I'm just going to include my notes on the beers. I loved the Confluence - it was much more of a session beer than the rest (the Curieux was over 11% abv!).

1. White Ale - their flagship beer, unfiltered (all Allagash brews are), flavors of curacao and coriander. 

2. Tripel - traditional Trappist monk style, single = table beer w/low alcohol, Dubbel and Tripel are darker, 7-8% abv. Smoky taste. 

3. Interlude - wild yeast used to make a spicy beer = cezanne (sp?), dries the beer out to make it more like wine. Aged half in steel barrel, half in oak, then blended. 

4. Confluence - use house yeast (same as for White) and wild yeast. Dry hopped to make it citrusy. 

5. Curieux - aged like bourbon; did it by chance: the bottles hadn't arrived so they had to put the Tripel in Jim Beam barrels.