Ok, this week is a doozy, so if TL,DR…
What’s a Belgian Tripel? (No hyper-link, just stroll to “Ok, What Is That”)
But before any of that, hope you’re all having a delightful holiday season so far! Ice and snow ain’t getting you down or nothing. Winter doldrums at a minimum so far? Good. We like to check in from time to time.
Now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way, down to business. Tomorrow, Dec. 12, is the next installment of Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW! This month is Ditty’s take on the $10,000 Pyramid! Now, we know what you’re thinking. Inflation has made the name a bit dated. But on the other hand, contestants of Thursday’s game are playing for drink tokens, so let’s just say it’s a moot point. And since there are no “celebrities” to play against the contestants, those playing will be paired with Klockow staff!
I hear you saying, “But it’s the holidays! Don’t you have anything Christmas related going on??” Glad you asked, because if you remember last year, we had on our stage an after-hours show featuring a number of Christmas music hits. It was Ridley & the Rascal’s Very Chaotic Christmas, and the musical comedic duo brought down the house! And they’re back this Saturday, Dec. 14, with a sequel: 2 Chaotic to Christmas.
Ok, we don’t need to pretend that these are strangers. Ridley and the Rascal are respectively Emily Slaubaugh (aka, Ditty Wish) and Nathan Bergstedt (aka, the guy literally writing this blog post). This whole thing started when the two friends made a joke about doing a Christmas album, and the idea just kinda stuck. Characters were developed, songs picked, and voila. Now it’s happening again, with new songs but the same ol’ motivation: to kickstart their music careers and make more money!! The new album is now available on Apple Music.
The show is free but tips for performers are encouraged. Performance starts after normal business hours at 9 p.m. And, like last year, the show is not family friendly.
If NSFW Christmas comedy concept albums aren’t your jam, perhaps we can interest you in something more… intellectual? Something thoughtful? Something like Storyteller Sunday?
This Sunday is a special edition of our monthly event since it is co-produced with Stay Human on 91.7 KAXE, the weekly radio story show hosted by Michael Goldberg. In addition to the open mic aspect of your typical Storyteller Sunday, Goldberg has invited a number of accomplished storytellers from around the state to grace the Klockow stage. The theme this month is “endings,” which means we’ll be hearing stories about being at the end of the road, about divorce, a Dear John letter, and wrapping up a year of ups and downs. Each story, including those for open mic, will be recorded live and be eligible for future airing on Stay Human at a future date.
Show begins at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 15.
But maybe you want something even MORE intellectual? Good, because we have that too. On Tuesday, Dec. 17, will be our first Third Tuesday Trivia, hosted by a rotating trio of community non-profits: Itasca Pride, Grand Rapids Area Freethinkers, and Itasca Area Indivisible. Each month will have time-relevant and general trivia, with categories chosen between the non-profit of the month and Klockow staff. Being December, you can expect to hear some Christmas-related questions, but that’s enough for teasers. Don’t wanna give too much away, after all.
Trivia is free to play, with drink tokens for winning teams of each game (two games per night). First game starts at 6 p.m., so get here early to sign up your team (no more than 6 people per team).
Hope you like great beer, because you’re going to have plenty of it while hanging out with us all week! Speaking of which…
Ok, What Is That?
We have an award-winning beer that has been turning heads here in the brewery ever since it was first brewed. It’s called Billy Bumbler, and it’s a Belgian Tripel. I’ve often referred to it as a gateway beer since I’ve seen, more than once, someone curiously order it before joining their table, only to have everyone at the table drinking it for their next round.
But what is it that these people are drinking? What makes it unique? And where the heck is Belgium??
The last question is the easiest. It’s a small country wedged between France and Germany to the west and east, with the Netherlands and the North Sea to the north. And the world of beer owes them a debt of gratitude for two reasons: their farmhouse ales and their monastic ales.
We’ve talked here before about what a Saison is, so it’s time we talked monastic beers. In addition to prayer and general monastery upkeep, the job of the Belgian monks for centuries has been to brew beer. And they’ve been doing it like crazy! Seriously, these mad scientists or artists or whatever have been brewing with complete abandon in stark contrast to their German neighbors and their beer purity laws.
A few things to get out of the way before we get much deeper, there’s a misconception that “Belgian” beer means “wheat” beer. We can thank brands like Blue Moon and Shock Top for that, with their popular and widely available Belgian Witbier (which translates to “white beer,” and are made from wheat). The short answer, and what I tell many of our customers when they infer that our Tripel is made from wheat, is that Belgian is a broad category and only some of them are made from wheat. Most are barley based, same as their counterparts in Germany and Great Britain.
“A lot of wheat beers have similar phenols and ester profiles to a lot of Belgian beers that are just brewed with barley. Which a lot of that has to do with the yeast,” said Andy Klockow, co-owner and head brewer here at Klockow Brewing Company.
The brief history of yeast evolution was that the German yeast strains were accustomed to cooler temperatures and were cold fermenters. This was encouraged by the Germans even before they knew what yeast were because they nearly universally brewed in the winter and stored beer in caves, giving us the clean, crisp lager beers we know of today. The Belgians, conversely, brewed all the time and had yeast strains that became excellent at handling warmer temperatures, allowing them to live and eat sugar and make copious amounts of alcohol even in the middle of the summer without the aid of modern refrigeration to help regulate things.
“They’d brew many different types of beer. In Germany, a town would brew their beer, and that’s the only beer that would be brewed. [The Belgian monks] would brew a whole bunch of different styles for the different seasons. Like a lighter beer for the summer, to drink while working. Especially for farmers and what-not, because the water might not be able to be trusted,” said Andy. “Then during lent, they’d brew fasting beers. They’d fast for 40 days and so they’d get all their caloric intake from drinking these higher ABV, higher sugar content, beers.”
Tripels are a form of these monastic beers, specifically brewed with golden malts and, this is key, added sugar in order to give these high-temp lovin’ Belgian yeast strains a lot of easily digestible food for them to produce a very high ABV beer. They’re part of a family of brews referred to as Belgian Strong Ales, but of course have their unique attributes. A Belgian Golden Strong will tend to be clearer to a Tripel’s cloudiness, and will have more pronounced fruit character to a Tripel’s phenolic spice. That being said, expect notes of banana and coriander when drinking either (bit more banana on the Golden Strong and more coriander on a Tripel).
Which brings us to the name. There are many theories and legends and mis-told stories as to how these beers got their names, specifically the Dubbel, Tripel, and the Quad. One (that I know I’ve sadly told before) is that they were named after numbers for the number of times grain was reused with just the addition of sugar. Another story, which seems much more believable, is that the barrels used to hold these brews were marked with Xs, with more Xs added to signify how strong the beer in each one was. So the strongest, what we today call a Quad, would be in a barrel marked XXXX.
We encourage you to come by and try our Belgian Tripel, the award-winning Billy Bumbler, next time you’re in our taproom. And while you’re at it, if you dare, give our Decima Christmas Ale a try! This rum-barrel-aged brew is additionally flavored with cinnamon, cardamom, cocoa nibs, nutmeg, and cloves, but the base of it is a classic Belgian Quad! This monster has the spice of a Belgian, the texture of a Russian Imperial Stout, and the ABV of a wine (13%). But let’s face it, it does kinda tastes like Christmas.
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Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.
The Klockow Staff
Beer drops this past week:
Local, etc. -
NoPo Coffee - Grand Rapids
Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids
Pickled Loon - Grand Rapids
Pokegama Plaza Liquors - Grand Rapids
Bottles & Brews - Grand Rapids
Raven Stone - Coleraine
SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids
SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids
Sammy’s - Grand Rapids
Smoke on the Water - Coleraine
Zorbaz - Grand Rapids
Hollywood Bait - Bovey
South, etc. -
Scandia Olde Towne Liquor - Scandia
Westside Liquor - St. Cloud
North and West, etc. -
SuperOne Liquor - International Falls
Bootleggers Liquor - International Falls
Beehive Offsale Liquors - Bemidji
Bemidji Curling Club - Bemidji
Liquor Lodge - Turtle River
SuperOne Liquors - Baxter