Last Saturday, I was lucky enough to
have the chance to speak with Dominique Friart the head of the
St-Feuillien Brewery. When I first heard from Ai at Craft Beer
Base (CBB) that the head of St-Feuillien would be at the bar for a
talk I knew I had to try to meet her.
I started the evening with a quick
visit to the Belgian Beer Weekend(look for a post about that soon) at the Umeda Sky Building
to use up the last of my tokens before popping over to CBB for the
St-Feuillien event.
To kick of the event I ordered a St-Feuillien
Blond Ale which was a nice beer that poured a wonderful
clear gold with a thick white head of foam – tasty!
While I was pouring my beer, the group
from St-Feuillien showed up, Mme Friart with her husband and their
translator. Everyone wanted to meet the head of such a famous brewery
& I just focused on enjoying my beer & chatting in French
with her husband who was a really nice guy. He's a journalist for a
paper in Belgium and was accompanying her on a trip around Japan
visiting Belgian events and places that distribute their beers. He
told me I had to visit Belgium during their beer festival which was
quite a big event. Someday...
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| pouring the St-Feuillien Trippel |
Awhile later, I was able to grab a
little time to chat with Mme Friart one on one and ask her a few
questions. I asked her what she thought about the Japanese beer scene
and she thought that while it is young she felt it was incredible how
much it was growing & developing. She found the pace at which it is
improving is impressive.
I then asked which of their beers she felt were the most accessible to people who don't know much about
beer and she told me that their grisette (low ABV white & fruit beers) is doing really
well in Japan and that the St-Feuillien Blond is also a great beer
for people to try first. I started my night with it so I can totally agree with her!
I followed up by asking which
of St-Feuillien's beers are more adventurous or interesting and she
was very proud of the St-Feuillien Grand Cru as their top tier beer.
I actually tried the Grand Cru later
that night and it is truly top of the line stuff. It had a great
body, light carbonation and a sweet mildly sour taste. It's a beer
with a light citrus & spice flavor and is really easy to drink
Since next weekend I am planning a
tasting of the St-Feuillien Friendship Brews, I had to ask her about
this collaboration between St-Feuillien & Green Flash. This collaboration produced two black saisons, one brewed at Green Flash in California and one at
St-Feuillien in Belgium. They used the same recipe on different
equipment which is what lead to the slightly different ABVs and taste
due to different fermentation conditions. I'm really looking forward
to trying them both out along with St-Feuillien's normal Saison as a
kind of control.
Dominique Friart said that the collaboration came about
when they were visiting the US and their distributor there introduced
the two breweries. They got along well so they decided to make a beer
together and the rest is history...
I finished up by asking her if she was
open to making a collaboration beer with a Japanese craft brewery and
she said she was but that she didn't know any breweries in Japan that
well and preferred to do one thing at a time. Then she let me know
they had another Green Flash & St-Feuillien beer in the works...
...an IPA!
All in all it was a great night and now
I have something nice to look forward to ^_^ Not many Belgian
breweries make IPAs so I am quite curious to see what they come up
with!
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| Dominique Friart with Tomoyo Kutsuna from Dotombori Beer |
