A Christmas Story

A girl walks into a bar in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood on a cold autumn evening, her first time there, a dark, wood-paneled joint called Hopleaf specializing in Belgian craft brews, also on the list of "125 Places to Have a Beer Before You Die." She is 24, not far removed from the days of bargain basement beer stockades in the college fridge, which translates into the drool that is domestic gruel. The punchline? She works for a company representing Miller, so drinks products such as Genuine Draft, Lite and High Life every Friday at happy hour. She knows it doesn't taste very good, but does not know better, and there are only so many dollars in a 24-year-old's purse for spending on beer. But at Hopleaf, she is handed a long, laminated menu that reads like a European train schedule, with names like Orval, Rochefort, Chimay, Kwak, La Chouffe, Duvel, Grimbergen, Rodenbach, Westmalle, Brunehaut and Abbaye St. Martin - a lot harder to pronounce than Budweiser and Coors and a lot more expensive. However, it is pay day, so why not? She picks the Abbaye St. Martin Blond (this fruity blond with an A.B.V. of 7% has a creamy white head - not air), because even though she is used to paying two bucks for a bottle of domestic, she already knows that beer is a religion, so she decides to go with the monks.

What happens next is a calling, a baptism by the holiest of liquids on earth. The Abbaye St. Martin Blond, in its signature chalice on a table, a cassoulet of rabbit in an earthen pot to the left and a cauldron of mussels to the right, speaks to her, preaches in an acceptable and comforting manner. She gravitates towards the discovery of this heaven where hops of only the highest order may frolic and calls to be accepted into this catechism of craft brew connoisseurs. Finally, her soul has found salvation and in an act reminiscent of Martin Luther, immediately posts 95 protestations, and more, against bad beer - those dribbles that are light, flavorless, and way below water, milk and root beer on the grand scale of beverages.

I am no longer the same girl, nine years later (I have not drank a drop of mediocre beer since, unless it was a sampling or out of professional necessity or courtesy - I would much rather not drink, if the choices available are paltry), but Abbaye St. Martin and Brunehaut (both crafted at the same brewery) beers continue to talk to me. More than that, they tweet me. They tell of the weather in Brussels, gossip about Internet freak shows, chuckle at the day's weirdest and most impossible news, and they know of an apartment in Paris you may rent for a long-term stay, and will whisper some local experiences for you to partake in. What more can you ask of excellent beers?

Ask not what your beer can do for you, but what you can do for your beer. It is not everyday that the owner of one of the world's finest time-honored brasseries rolls out the red carpet for a personal tour of his domain. I had stopped by Belgium before a business trip to Paris in September, and stayed with our lovely family friend Livia in Bruges. On a beautiful morning (oh, how facetious I am - every day in Belgium is a beautiful one, fine weather or not!), we rented a Volkswagen Golf and began the alleged 40-minute drive to Rongy. It's not easy to find good beer - lagers are everywhere, but you have to be willing to sip outside of the bottle, flip the barley over and swirl up a little storm in the glass. We drove from Flemish-speaking West Flanders to French-speaking Wallonia, got lost in Tournai, got to Antoing, got lost again amid towering mills, before finding ourselves on a perfectly-paved country road (all but yellow-bricked) that led us all the way to the doorstep of Brasserie de Brunehaut, corn slow-dancing on both sides now along the way. You can imagine how thirsty a two-hour drive with detours can be!

 The road to Rongy, Belgium.

See, beer and crisis go together like steak and frites, waffle and dark chocolate sauce, and Bruges and bridges. When Marc-Antoine de Mees bought Brasserie de Brunehaut four years ago, it was facing a crisis, and he was a crisis manager by trade. Like a dark Belgian ale, such as the fantastic Abbaye St. Martin tripel (three varieties of malt and three varieties of hops join forces to create a robust 9% A.B.V.), drawn to Flemish carbonnades, Marc-Antoine set to work making an institution since 1096 relevant to now. Innovations and solutions were needed without watering down tradition. In addition to operational overhauls and philosophy tinkerings, to keep his beers surging forward, Marc-Antoine went back to earth, planting his own barley and wheat, using pure water unique to his very own well - "It was like a dream to own a craft artisanal brewery," he says. The Brunehaut line, in fact, is organic and the first in Europe to be exported in recyclable kegs (seriously, in how many ways can beer make me happy?). And this is how Marc-Antoine came to describe his brewery as "both old and new." In fact, his Facebook status the other day proclaimed, "Alcohol may not solve your problems, but neither will water or milk."

 A man and his brewery.

After showing us around the brewery like a proud dad, we settled by the bar where Marc-Antoine poured generous samplings of almost everything in his collection for us, each in its own chalice, with the ideal proportion of head to beer and of course, that intricate Belgian lace. There are not many beers in this world that can set your heart a-whirl and your tongue a-twirl - the Abbaye St. Martin and Brunehaut lines are two of them for me. They say that alcohol loosens the tongue, but I beg to differ - in fact, my palate locks up while tasting fine beers like this. They get very defensive about flavors and aromas, getting plugged in to the nuances in hops and malts, picking up the beat in processes such as toasting, distillation and mashing, understanding the patience of fermentation. One of the reasons why I love beers is because they just go so damned well with food. I can't imagine drinking a one-size-fits-all beer that kills the taste of what you're eating. So what does Marc-Antoine do at his real home?

 Bar none.

"I mainly use our white organic to make fish sauces," says the guy who, like all true beer-drinkers, is also a gourmand and unlike all true beer-drinkers, actually carries his weight in the kitchen, making almost everything he eats from scratch. "I like our St. Martin Blond to cook white meat like chicken and rabbit (or to make pate with) and the St. Martin Brune for a beef stew. Nice with dark chocolate, too!"

I sampled the Abbaye St. Martin Tripel, even though I've had it before - after all, I was on home ground and it is my favorite type of beer, and for old times' sake, the Blond. I definitely love the Brunehaut collection as well - the Bio Blanche, Bio Blond and Bio Amber are all great-tasting, especially with the linger of sunshine and the light crisp of fall as setting. But I already knew which my favorite was as soon as I locked lips with it; Marc-Antoine, however, doesn't play favorites.

 Tap dancing.

"There are no ideal beers," he says. "There are beers adapted for different tastes, for different seasons, for different temperatures, for different moments in the day. They all have to be complex, but well-balanced." However, he doesn't like "beers with one taste hiding the others." There not being an ideal beer doesn't halt the pursuit for perfection - Brasserie de Brunehaut's walls are running out of room for beer awards and accolades from around the world.

"I am proud of the job our brewmaster and our people have done over the years," Marc-Antoine says. "We have gained the international recognition of our quality, which is a must to me. Everyday, I think about what to do to be better and better. No concession about it!"

 A beautiful head atop the signature Abbaye St. Martin chalice. See the guy in the red coat in the stained glass window design? "That's me," says Marc-Antoine. That's the brewmaster paying taxes.

After a few rounds though, you could maybe get Marc-Antoine to say this: "My favorite is St. Martin Blond - easy to share with friends in many circumstances. A bit like Le Petit Prince, do you know him?"

And my favorite? Well, it was Christmas in September for me. Like the Othello of beers, the Abbaye St. Martin Cuvee de Noel (8.5% A.B.V.) is a regal, noble prince of a ruby - crisp, pronounced with notes of caramels and holiday spices, yet subtle and pleasant to mouth. It dressed for the occasion with a beautiful lace and just like Christmas, it comes up on you without you realizing, but is full of pleasant cheer and warm, happy, fuzzy feelings. Just ho-ho-ho-some. I bought half a case of this to bring home, which I carried across two trains into Paris, and then onto a 13-hour flight home a week later. Ask not what your beer can do for you, but what you can do for your beer.

 Happy hop-hop-hoplildays!

One of the things I had wondered, with Rongy being just north of the border to France, why Marc-Antoine didn't dabble in wine as well.

He smiles and says, "I am Belgian, not French."

Marc-Antoine at the top of his world, with Europe's first recyclable export kegs (thanks for the picture!).