This week, I was a guest on the Liv­ing Proof Brew Cast, hosted by John Tay­lor Williams and Thomas Gideon.  Their show notes are repli­cated below:

Before we got into the thirsty work of my recent trip update, we poured and dis­cussed our beers for the evening. As a fore­shad­ow­ing on our main topic with Chris, he had a St. Peters Sorghum Beer. The beers John and I enjoyed were a good intro­duc­tion to my thoughts on Brus­sels. John had the New Bel­gium 1554 and I had the New Bel­gium Trip­pel. Both ales reminded me strongly of the many beers–dubbels, trip­pels, blonds, brunes–that I enjoyed every day dur­ing my week in Belgium.

The rea­son for my trip, a busi­ness trip, was the EU Hackathon. Some of you may have seen the video I sharedthe really cap­tured the spirit of the event. My Untappd stream reflected almost all of the beers I had while abroad. The high­light of my trip was def­i­nitely Moeder Lam­bic, the one at Place Fontainas. Not only was there an amaz­ing pro­fu­sion of beers on offer but beer cul­ture is def­i­nitely in the very DNA of this estab­lish­ment. The pho­tos from the very end of the set on my Flickr account are from this venue.

From early on in my trip, I shared how I learned what Bel­gians con­sider a black ale ver­sus what we call a black beer here in the states. This expe­ri­ence was from Café Leffe and the beer in ques­tion was the West­malle Abbey Dubbel. The 1554, which is very close to the black, or more accu­rately brown, ales reminded John of another New Bel­gium, Snow Day, that he had recently.

The best beer of the trip, bar none, a beer that still haunts me was the Val-Dieu Grand Cru. This is a spe­cialty beer, on research­ing it, from the Abbey du Val-Dieu which may make it hard to find either through an online or a local retailer or importer. The top spot of this beer is say­ing some­thing con­sid­er­ing some of the oth­ers I had at Moeder Lam­bic like the Can­til­lon Rose du Gam­bri­nus, a two year old fram­boise lam­bic, and the Kerkom Win­terkoninkske. Bret, our friend and the brew­mas­ter at Growlers, rec­om­mended check­ing with his friends atHalf­time Bev­er­age.

One of the other beers I had on the trip, a 12 year old Trap­pist ale, has just been announced as com­ing to the states.

Speak­ing of travel, Chris shared his thoughts on his travel plans for the com­ing year. He is think­ing of try­ing to head out some place inter­est­ing at least once a month. Ide­ally 2012 will see some great reports from the field by him as well as another brew day with accom­pa­ny­ing social time to hang out, relax, and catch up in person.

The sub­ject of brew­ing with Chris again segued us into a brew­ing update from him. He shared his thoughts on a pale ale he made and sev­eral instruc­tive fail­ures from his exper­i­men­ta­tions since he last col­lab­o­rated with us in the beer kitchen. The pale ale, a Bells Two Hearted clone from TastyBrew.com, sounded like a chal­leng­ing beer while young but may be aging out to some­thing very spe­cial, what John dubbed a “hop wine.” The impe­tus for an experiement so heav­ily hopped was 10oz of home grown hops from a friend of Chris’. John offered that the expe­ri­ence with this beer was very sim­i­lar to his with the Green Grass and High Tides.

We ended up chat­ting a bit about what we’ll be brew­ing next. As fun as the idea of The Mon­grel was, I think John and I want to put the Sum­mer of protest beer behind us and return to famil­iar responses and new exper­i­ments. We are due to brew in my kitchen next. I want to tackle a recipe we tasted and dis­cussed in our tri­an­gu­la­tion episodes, the Sun-Dial in the Shade Oat­meal Stout.

Chooch told us how to cheer in China, in both Man­darin and Cantonese.

We turned to the rea­son we invited Chris on, a dis­cus­sion of gluten free beers and brew­ing. Chris shared his expe­ri­ences and impres­sions from about half a month so far of drink­ing only gluten free beers. He reminded us why he is doing this for the month of Novem­ber. In addi­tion to the St. Peter”s he men­tioned at the out­set, Chris has also tried Red­Bridge, Lake­front New Grist, and Bard’s.

John has men­tioned William Davis’ “Wheat Belly” before, when we were rumi­nat­ing on the effec­tive­ness of Evo’s brew diet. He brought it up again as being rel­e­vant to why wheat may cause some peo­ple grief even in the absence of celiac or an actual allergy. Chris offered a sim­i­lar read that pro­vokes thought around food cul­ture and indus­try, “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pol­lan. In addi­tion to read­ing and research, Chris is tak­ing a very con­sid­ered approach that includes jour­nal­ing his expe­ri­ences and impressions.

Bol­ster­ing the idea that there are unex­plored fla­vors beyond wheat and bar­ley, John had the Great Divide Samu­rai, a rice beer that def­i­nitely com­pares well to any beer, gluten free or oth­er­wise. He has also brewed with rye and is a fan of its pres­ence in spir­its. Basic Brew­ing Radio had a fan­tas­tic episode on gluten free brew­ing that delved in the fla­vors avail­able from these ingre­di­ents. Search for Desiree Knott of High Grav­ity in Tulsa to find the episode in ques­tion. All three of us are great fans of every­thing James and com­pany do on that podcast.

Chris explained the thought behind the name he decided to brew under, Spec­u­la­tive Brew­ing, that cap­tures the adven­tur­ous and exper­i­men­tal spirit he brings to brew­ing. If you want more from Chris spe­cific to beer, check out his recent review of pump­kin ales. He is plan­ning a sim­i­lar review in Decem­ber of Christ­mas and hol­i­day ales. Feel free to par­tic­i­pate in the con­ver­sas­tions around both pieces by con­tribut­ing your thoughts on a related beer in the com­ments. John or I will add a com­ment with our impres­sions of Fly­ing Dog’s The Fear, an out­stand­ing and unusual local pump­kin beer. You can expand the beers Chris is able to review by donat­ing and send­ing him some­thing local or regional near you. That holds true if you want John and I to try some­thing on mic. Either way, feel free to con­tact us for details of how to get us beers.

Christo­pher T. Miller

Christo­pher T. Miller is a soft­ware devel­oper by trade and a writer by neces­sity. He is one of the co-founders of Podiobooks.com and is the Over­lord of The Secret Lair. He has not yet been eaten by a grue.

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