Anatomy of a Kriek

A glass of the unique Rainier Kriek

It has now been over a week since I attended Double Mountain's first ever Kriek Kamp. I have been working on this post since, but have had incredible difficulty summing it all up and distilling it down to a manageable size. The goal of the Kriek Kamp (as far as I can tell) is to educate folks about what all goes into crafting fine ales like Double Mountain's highly anticipated annual release, Devil's Kriek, and its newer companion, Rainier Kriek. I can easily sum up my experience: We Came, We Ate, We Toiled, but mostly... We Drank Kriek. But that would be an oversimplification of an amazing three days destined to live on in my memory as one of the best beer experiences one can ever have.

I am without a doubt a city boy and have spent my whole life that way, but the undeniable peace, calm, and beauty of the countryside and nature occassionally calls. While I can't imagine spending my days away from the traffic, bars, culture, and nightlife of the city, the gorge and Hood River certainly make a strong argument.

On Wednesday afternoon I made my way to Hood River, OR, home of Double Mountain Brewery, thanks to my ride and fellow beer writer, Brady Walen of The Daily Pull. Checking into my riverside hotel that I was sharing with Belmont Station manager Captain Neil, I discovered a surprisingly stunning view and, even better, that the evening's event at the brewery had been upgraded from a pizza party to a full-blown brewers dinner.

A big thanks to owners Charlie Devereux and Matt Swihart, who thought an amazing vertical tasting of every batch ever of their Devil's and Rainier Krieks were too good to be paired with just pizza (as amazing as the pub's pizza is). As if that was not enough, we began with piles of cheese and a tasting of other commercially-available imported Kriek beers. But I digress a bit...a Kriek may be the most popular kind of sour beer made (with the possible exception of Framboise). It's a lambic-based beer, a style that would be spontaneously fermented in Belgium with wild yeasts and bacteria and then transferred to rest over cherries. The yeast and bacteria slowly eat the sugars from the cherries, transferring the juicy flavors and subtleties and adding more sourness from both the fruit's natural flavor and also, as the result of byproducts produced as the wild buggers feast upon the sugars of the cherries, lactic and acetic acids.

The tasting of commercial Krieks prior to all of Double Mountain's own Kriek vintages and variations was a rare chance to learn the incredible amount of differences in the style and even vast changes in DM's own beer. For example, the Liefman's Kriek is more sweet and balanced, the Echt more tart but also more cherry candy flavored, and the Oud Beersel is possibly the best--more light and effervescent, dry and tart. While Double Mountain's beers ranged from being barely sour at all, like the first vintage, to having a light clear base beer for the cherries to shine, to a thicker, maltier middle that allowed no light through and came off more rounded. Some years showed more funk than others, and some were far more sour, as the newest 2011 vintages are. It turns out that the base beer is slightly tweaked each year--it began as a light blond and at one point was more a Flemish Brown. Next year's 2012 is something in between those two styles.

Our dinner was superb, with such pairings as savory pizza with caramelized onions, chevre, and oven-dried cherries, lamb rib chops with Kriek demi-glaze, baked polenta, and roasted asparagus. The triple-layer dessert bar that combined oatmeal crisp, chocolate, and cherry filling blended perfectly with the beers. From there, with an open bar at the taproom we tried to drink something else other than Kriek. The fine taplist featured offerings I have not seen in Portland, like Red Rye, Dapper Dan and their Pilsner. A nightcap and a growler taken back to the hotel for brief rest before the real meat of Kriek Kamp began the next morning.

Hotel patio

I would like to give a shout out to the Hood River Inn, where a number of members of our party stayed. It is only a Best Western and does not sound that great, but its placement right next to the water and the beautiful 10 minute walk through the port and by the marina museum is a great way to start the day. Also, the restaurant and bar provide great views and, hell, I even got a room with a patio overlooking Washington.

footbridge over a tributary to town

Our first full day of Kriek Kamp began in the morning with beer sensory training. What a unique way to start, when our senses were fresh and untainted from beer. Brewmaster Matt Swihart led us through, having us smell multiple glasses stuffed with different spices and the like that were covered with a few holes punched through as we attempted to identify each. Some were easy to pick out and some were quite difficult.

A covered glass of corn for sensory aroma smelling

After that, the real hard part began. We attempted to drink pitchers of Coors Light with different ingredients added, and to pick out those additions. For example: salt, sugar, vinegar...These things not only change the flavor in obvious ways, but also served to show that other aspects of the beer can be changed as well, like the hardness or softness of the water, and the perception of malt character and bitterness.

From there we received a welcome (though educational) respite from tasting flavored Coors. We took a tour of Double Mountain's brewery and went through their brewing process. Though I have been in countless breweries and spend a lot of time in them already, it was still great seeing Double Mountain's facility. I recall shortly after they first opened taking a trip up there to bring back the first keg to Portland and seeing how small and modest the operation was. I am not sure if I have really been in that back room since then, and it was incredible to see how monstrous it had become. I say that, of course, in relative terms; it's still quite small even compared to neighbors Full Sail, but they have managed to fill every nook and empty space with a tank reaching the high ceilings.

Matt Swihart (center in green) leads the Kampers

Matt Swihart seems to have a handle on everything. Even when speaking about factors he had little control over, like wild yeasts and the delay of his cherry orchard crops, he seems to be supremely confident about the outcome (or at least OK with whatever it will be). If the car swerves off the road, that's OK, he will repave the road to adjust, if you get what I am saying. The general feeling I got was that he directs the brewery and its staff with a lighthearted but stern hand. This is business, but there is no reason brewing cannot be fun. He directed the Kriek Kampers this way as well, like leading troops into battle through each stage of the brewery's process, from filling the hop backs full of whole leaf hops to explaining how the screen keeps them fully immersed in the hot wort to extract all of their oils.

Kampers basque in the brewhouse steam

Here Matt also touched upon the bottling issue. Double Mountain produces an incredible amount of beer for its size. They produce more beer than any other draft-only brewery in the state, and one can only imagine how much they could sell if they bottled. When I visited the brewery when they first opened, they did in fact have a small bottling system and planned to package in German-style 16oz hand grenade sized bottles and do limited releases of the Devil's Kriek in 750ml caged and corked bottles. That never came to be, given the realities of trying to keep up with production and space. One day, after years of taunting him, Matt listed the bottling equipment on Pro Brewer and sold it. Now, though, bottling is becoming an increasingly obvious next step for a brewery maxing out on their space; however, there is still the issue of where they would have room in their current building to do so.

After an all-you-can-eat-and-drink lunch in the taproom (where I sucked down a couple more Krieks), we boarded a tour bus and headed out to the orchards. Originally the Kamp was to pick cherries at Matt Swihart's own orchard for use in next year's Krieks, but Matt's fruit was not quite ripe yet. Instead we headed to another orchard to pick cherries for a different brew made specifically for Kriek Kamp and brewed the day we arrived, a Cherry Porter.

Matt Swihart and the Orchards owner discuss Cherry picking techniques

Here is where Kampers had to put in a little work on tall ladders over cherry trees in a sloping valley. The scenery was pretty and the sun was out and temperatures rising. I have heard it joked that Double Mountain basically got us to work for free, but no one there would ever suggest such a thing. Picking cherries from the ladders provided a great view and a fair amount of these sweet dark cherries were consumed in the process. We were provided snacks and water, and the total effort probably only lasted an hour and a half before we were on to our next brewery stop. I also have to say that picking these cherries yourself instills a whole new appreciation for the process and the work that goes into making a kriek. The Double Mountain guys don't just purchase cherry puree for the beer, they actually grow it and pick these themselves. The cherries are also important. There are many kinds of cherries, both light and dark, sweet and sour. Typically in Kriek you would be using some kind of sour cherry like a Morello, but today we were picking the darker sweeter variety, very juicy and rich but tannic at the same time. The thought was that these would go much better in a darker, richer porter that is not meant to necessarily be sour.

But here again Brewmaster Matt demonstrated his confidence and natural ability to make decisions on the fly. After learning there were some sour cherries growing down the road, he got a few volunteers to pick a small portion of those, too, because why not, a little bit of a tartness to complement the highly fermentable sweet cherries could be a good thing. Here we also learned how to gauge the brix of a cherry, or how much the sugars had developed and how ripe they were. The darker they are, the more sugar, and by simply squeezing some juice out of them and onto a plate of a device some brewers may know of--a refractometer--you can easily peer through its scope and determine the brix of those cherries.

After picking two bucketfuls or so of cherries (and eating half that), we took our tour bus deeper into the valley to Logsdon Farmhouse Ales (I will say that story for another post), then to Matt Swihart's own home and orchards for a tour and some drinks and barbecue.

If there was any doubt that Matt Swihart was not already living the life as the Brewmaster and Co-Owner of one of Oregon's best breweries, then his plot of land that he calls home would cement that fact. Perched in an area with land spreading out on either side sloping downward into the valley where you can see almost the entire gorge sits his modest home. It is not large, but it does feature huge windows that are great for taking in sunsets. In the lower part is a garage where he works upon his vintage automobile and motorcycle that he rarely drives. Here he also just added a two tap Kegorator that this day was pouring Vaporizer and Pilsner, and was later switched out for Wooden Nickel, DM's barrel-aged Tripel. Here, under some festival canopies and a parachute stretched out to act as a sun block, we had a huge catered BBQ buffet with beers and wine. We sat out in the grass near the fire pit, drank beer, chatted, and played bocce until the sun began to set.

This, it turns out, was the perfect time to tour Matt's 40 some odd acres of orchards. As I mentioned before, these slope down from a high elevation into the valley making for a breathtaking view that makes you feel your far from civilization yet Hood River is not far away. The sounds really carry up the pass as well, as we observed from the cacophony of less peaceful gunfire from some one far off in the base of the valley.

As Matt told us, these acres that now are where he grows all the cherries for their Kriek beers were once meant for wine grapes and were attempted once to become apple orchards, perhaps for cider. Unfortunately, the apple trees did not stick and died out. Apparently there is more to worry about than pests here, as we heard stories about a bear that terrorized the cherry trees, breaking their limbs and literally ripping the trunk in half.

Scattered around the acres are Double Mountain kegs used as markers and holes for his disc golf course. I heard stories from brewer Kyle Chandler, who said that while playing a game of disc golf they would occassionally smash a frisbee into a tree losing numerous berries. Clearly, growing on land owned by a brewer here could be hazardous to a tree's health. In contrast, it's hard to imagine a better escape for a man who works all day in essentially an industrial factory (brewery) to be able to leave to a tranquil living landscape not far from home with all the bounty that makes the day job possible. The experience may perfectly sum up what it is to brew beer, a mix of equal parts science and technology and creativity and the uncertain natural beauty of living entities.

Finishing up our evening dinner on Matt's farm, we reluctantly made our way to the tour bus taking us back to our temporary residences. Looking back on Matt's home, we noticed a full moon, bright and yellow, rising above the trees. It was probably the most beautiful thing I saw on the whole trip, yet uncaptureable on my small handheld camera. We left wishing we could have just camped out in his fields.

The next morning I rose not looking forward to the end of what would be our final half day in Hood River, doing the messy work of processing the cherries to be added to the beer. At most breweries adding the cherries to a kriek would be as simple as cutting open bags and squeezing them into a tank. I wonder how many actually grow, pick, crush, and ferment their own? Certainly no others in Oregon that I know of, and the only one that comes to mind that may would be Wisconsin's great New Glarus Brewing.

After carting out on a forklift the small, worn out, but sturdy little conical fermenter this beer was to be made in, brewers and Kriek Kampers poured bucket loads of the previous day's pickings through a small hand-cranked mill used to crush wine grapes. After the first batch it became immediately apparent that the two rolling wheels that cracked the skin were not tight enough together, and the cherries were barely damaged. After finding the proper tools and reworking it for a tighter fit, we were ready to roll again. Running the cherries through the mill at just enough to mash them but not pulverize them into a bucket and then stuffing those into 3 or so huge mesh bags. Finally after filling those bags with the bloody juice and mashed up cherries, brewers attempted to stuff them in the small manhole while precariously balancing and trying not to get completely covered in what looked like a chopped up carcass.

Moving the fermenter back into the brewery, the porter wort that had been chugging along in primary fermentation for just 2 days and still in it's prime was hooked up to the smaller fermenter with the cherries and pumped over. The beautiful bloody color of cherry juice and the dark frothing yeasty wort blending together looked good enough to be a dessert. For a brewer this is also a revealing technique, as some suggest to let a beer finish its primary fermentation before adding another fermentable such as a fruit. Clearly Double Mountain's take is somewhere in between the two, letting the beer ferment out for a few days resulting in probably half or more of its way down to the beers eventual terminal gravity, yet leaving the yeast still extremely active in their prime to eat away at the sugars in the cherries. I think this would likely lead to a drier beer in the finish and a slightly safer fermentation. as opposed to adding cherries from the start with risk of wild yeasts or bacteria that could make the beer sour. Adding the fruit a few days in allows some alcohol to develop to ward off unwanted bugs and flavors.

The work of the day done, we finished our Kriek Kamp experience with another all-you-can-eat-and-drink lunch at the Double Mountain pub and said our goodbyes with a newfound respect for this small brewpub in the gorge. I will never again look at the price point for one of Double Mountain's Kriek's again and wince at the number. It's worth every penny and simply gets better every year. And these guys certainly work their ass off...

Cheers to them, and look out for the Kriek in Portland, If you can find it or, if not, it is easily worth a drive to Hood River to find.