Audience meet BOAB, BOAB meet audience. If it is your first time meeting BOAB, you might just need to know that it is Fuggled-speak for beers that are "between orange and brown", so anything from Vienna lagers to brown ale and everything in between, erm obviously as that is in the name. Onwards ho!
Virginia
- Tavern Brown Ale - Alewerks Brewing, Williamsburg
- Beech Blanket - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
- Loden Vienna Lager - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
Honorable mentions: Threadenator; Loden; Houndstooth - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville; Fritz - SuperFly Brewing, Charlottesville; Wolf Gang Vienna Lager - Buffalo Mountain Brewing, Floyd.
Let's just get one thing out of the way Selvedge are going to dominate the Virginia lists for these reviews for the very simple reason I drink far more of their beer than any other brewery in Virginia. As I mentioned in a Vinepair article last year, they are knocking it out of the park, and if anything they are only getting better as Josh and gang get a full grip on their new brewing system.It may come as a surprise to some though that my Virginia BOAB beer of the year is not the magnificent Loden, but rather their rauchbier, Beech Blanket. I love rauchbier, to the extent that I am not interested in these silly little "hint of bacon" beers, hit me with lots of smoke! Beech Blanket is much more in the Spezial realm than Schlenkerla, and is absolutely redolent with pungent beech smoke, coupled though with a smooth drinkability that has made it a regular beer throughout this year. Also, fun fact, it makes a fantastic addition to many of Josh's pale lagers just to mix things up a bit.
Rest of the USA
- Altbier - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC
- Copper - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
- Munzler's Vienna Lager - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
Honorable mention: Little Nator - Tröeg's Brewing, Hershey, PA
It's pretty slim pickings in the rest of the USA section this year, largely because Mrs V and I haven't really got out and about the country much. Even with that said, the 3 selections here are all fantastic beers, but I have to choose just one, and that one is an example of one of my favourite styles, but first a story. The first time I had this particular style, I was in Berlin, it was 2008 and Mrs V and I had gone to hang out with a friend. Wandering round that day we stumbled upon an art festival, and in the middle of festival was a mobile bar for Brauerei Schumacher in Düsseldorf. I was as giddy as a schoolboy to have my first real altbier actually from Düsseldorf as up to that point I had only had a version at Pivovar u Bulovky in Prague. Anyway, I fell in love with the style immediately, and it is still a bucket list item to drink Schumacher at source. The winner here though I drank in rather different circumstances, the kids were in bed, it was hot as hell in Florida, and so I went out to the balcony of the place we stay in and opened a one litre growler to Bierkeller Brewing's Altbier, and it was sublime. So good, I went and got my other growler of it, just to keep on drinking it. When we headed back north to Virginia, with a quick stop on Columbia, I stocked up.
Rest of the World
- Pilsner Urquell - Plzeňský Prazdroj, Plzeň, CZ
- Oktober-Fest Märzen - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Aying, DE
- Nut Brown Ale - Samuel Smiths Brewery, Tadcaster, UK
Again with the slim pickings, a combination of drinking mostly locally brewed beers and having really upped my homebrew game the last couple of years. The international BOAB beer of the year though is one whose arrival in the stores signifies the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, which by itself gives the game away. Ayinger are such a solid choice for German beer, though I wish I understood their production codes to work out the age of some of their beers, when it comes to seasonals though I worry less. I realise Oktober-Fest is not an official beer for the festival itself, but in my mind it captures the essence of a great festbier, hefty but not cloying, distinctive but not wacky, I relish every bottle I get my hands on.
Ah....decisions, decisions. Three great beers, three fantastic styles. Ultimately though, I have had a long affair with the winning style, ever since trying it for the first time in Prague (the suspense must be erm, well, suspenseful given I had all three styles for the first time in Prague)...but the winner is the style that won my heart ultimately in a park in Berlin. Yeah, altbier is just something I love and lament in almost equal measure given the scarcity of the style in the US. So, the BOAB beer of 2025 is the superb example of the style from Columbia's Bierkeller, a brewery that I recently highlighted in an article for Vinepair as one of the best in the US.
No comments:
Post a Comment