Cantillon Zwanze Day at Monk’s Cafe Means Great Beer for a Great Cause


Cantillon_i001Tomorrow, September 14th is Zwanze Day and Monk’s Cafe is one of just 44 beer bars around the world that will be pouring this year’s version of Cantillon. And since it is Monk’s, they are making a big event around the 3 p.m. beer tapping with an epic list of beers on tap. It is also a fundraiser for  Sutter Breast Care Center.

This is a charity fundraising event, which means that all draft beer is CASH ONLY!

The keg of Cantillon Zwanze will be tapped promptly at 3PM, our time, for a simultaneous tapping in 44 bars in 14 countries around the world.  These Top Beer Bars are in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Holland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sardinia, Spain, Sweden and the USA.

We are raising money for Sutter Breast Care Center, a charity which funds free exams for impoverished women. We want all your cash… it really is for a great cause, please be generous.

ALL OF THESE BEERS WILL BE CASH ONLY  100% of that cash will go directly to Charity

We’ll Tap These Kegs at NOON

All Draft Beer will be served in approximately 6 OUNCE servings

I know they’re expensive, but ALL the money goes to charity.

THESE ARE $5 CASH

Allagash Smoke & Beards (Maine)   a collaboration with Menno Olivier of Browerij DeMolen (Netherlands).  A smoked tripel.  Sounds yummy!  8.5%abv  $7  $5 CASH

Allagash PNC Broken Elevator (Maine) I made with Jason Perkins and my PNC mates from Falling Rock in Denver, Toronado in San Francisco, and Brouwer’s Café in  Seattle.  This has been aged in wood barrels since May 2010. I flew up the Portland, ME on April 17th, 2013 to help select which barrels to use for the final blend.  ???%abv  $5 CASH

Brasserie des Franches Montagnes Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien (Switzerland)- This is a crazy beer which blurs the line between beer & port.  Each year Jerome Rebetowitz makes this one slightly differently by selecting different wine/spirit barrels for aging. 11%  $5 CASH

Bullfrog Jong Bruin  (Willamsport, PA) Flanders-style sour brown ale aged with wild yeasts and steeped with sour cherries.   7%abv .   $5 CASH

Bullfrog Jong Bruin Druiven  (Willamsport, PA) Flanders-style sour brown ale aged with wild yeasts and steeped with Merlot Grapes.   7%abv .   $5 CASH

DeMolen Rook & Leer  (Netherlands) Collabortaion with Tom Peters. Deeply smoky Imperial Stout aged in Lagavulin barrels for 2 years w/brettanomyces.  Sour, smoked Imperial Stout.  Not for everyone, but we love it! 11.5% $7  $5 CASH

Evil Twin Femme Fatale Brett (NC) An IPA fermented with only Brettanomyces, no traditional saccharomyces yeast was used.  4.8%  $5 CASH

Firestone Walker PNC Imperial Buckwheat Stout   (CA) David Walker was kind enough to let our PNC band of miscreants to invade his brewery to make this one. It’s another PNC beer with the same cast of characters with the addition of Apex in Portland, OR and Toronado in San Diego.  Massive imperial stout, which had a bit of buckwheat in the mash, aged in fresh-from-the-distillery tequila barrels.  13.7%abv  %   $5 CASH

Jolly Pumpkin Calabaza Blanca (MI)- Belgian influenced Wit with the requisite orange peel and coriander, but this was aged in wood for a nice tart finish.  4.8%   $5 CASH

Jolly Pumpkin Weizen Bam  (MI) Farmhouse hefeweizen fermented with brettanomyces and other souring cultures.  Aromas of banana, clove and nutmeg with a sour tinge. 4.5%  $5 CASH

Monk’s Café Flemish Sour Ale – (Belgium) That’s right, our own private label brewed for us  just outside Ghent, Belgium.  Medium body, red color, fruity nose, malt flavor with a acetic & lactic sourness. A real thirst quencher.  $5 CASH

Oxbow Farmhouse Pale Ale – (ME)  Local boy makes a splash in beer-world. Mike Fava, formerly of Nodding Head, moved to Maine to help brew at a true, farmhouse brewery.  They make amazing ales.  American hops meet saison yeast in this dry, signature ale. 6%   $5 CASH

Oxbow Loretta – a grisette, rustic in character and brewed w/spelt 4%   $5 CASH 

Oxbow OG Deluxe – Biere de Garde brewed with Brian of Stillwater. 8%   $5 CASH

Russian River Supplication (CA)  Brown ale aged in french oak pinot noir barrels for different periods of time.  Vinnie then blends these barrels into this magic elixir.  He adds fresh sour cherries and three “wild” yeast strains: brettanomyces, lactobacillus & pediococcus.  This is one of my all-time favorite beers.  7.2%abv.  $5 CASH

 

THE FOLLOWING DRAFT BEERS ARE $10 CASH

All Draft Beer will be served in approximately 6 OUNCE servings

I know they’re expensive, but ALL the money goes to charity

Cantillon Kriek          Fresh sour cherries are added to a two-summer old lambic (about a year and a half to two years old).  The cherries are the wild Schaarbeeks varitey, they are not from a cherry orchard.. Many lambic producers purchase cherries from Poland or use concentrate…not Cantillon.  The cherries are added whole – pits, stems and all, and steep in the lambic for four to five months.  The acidity of the lambic begins to dissolve even the pits.  $10 CASH

Cantillon Vigneronne Fermented with Italian white muscat grapes.  The grape aroma and taste are subtle, but are definitely there.  Always a small production of this gem.  $10 CASH 

Cantillon Iris  A unique lambic.  It is made from 100% malted barley & with fresh (not aged) Hallertau hops. this batch was not dry hopped as is thier usual method. $10 CASH

Russian River Pliny the Elder (CA) You know what it is.  8%abv .   $10 CASH for a PINT

Tilquin Oude Gueuze (Belgium) Pierre Tilquin is Belgium’s newest lambic blender.  Great balance to this oaky, sour Gueuze.  6%abv .   $10 CASH

We’ll Tap The Keg of Zwanze promptly at 3PM

Cantillon Zwanze 2013 – The once a year – different beer – Cantillon special lambic.  This is basically an abbey double fermented in stainless steel.  Then blended with 10% lambic and aged in oak barrels.  See separate sheet for Jean Van Roy’s complete description.  It’s really funny. 7.2%  $10 CASH for 5 ounces

Zwanze TShirts & Cantillon Glassware Available

We have a very limited supply of all these, so don’t tarry, buy them NOW!

Boys & girls t’s:  $TBD

Glassware:  $TBD 

This is a fundraiser for Breast Cancer so everything is CASH ONLY!

100% of that cash will go directly to the charity

We paid for all the beer, Tshirts & glassware.  We also pay our employees and we don’t make any profit –  that is our donation

Now it’s your turn to donate…give me all your CASH!

FROM JEAN VAN ROY (owner/brewer of Cantillon)

When we started renovation works in the cellars of the brewery two years ago, much to our surprise we came upon the remains of some very old walls. In agreement with the medievalists of the city of Brussels, the works were stopped in order to allow archaeological excavations to take place.

Shortly thereafter we were astonished to find out that Cantillon brewery had in fact been built on the ruins of the very ancient Abbey of Cureghem! According to the medievalists, this religious community was well-known during the middle ages for its fowl fed on draff and, more specifically, for its dish of stuffed Cureghem capon, which was served with a beer brewed at the abbey and apparently drew pilgrims from all over Europe.

Yet it was truly a heavenly surprise when the excavations uncovered the cell of the abbot, Father Faro. In the small room the archaeologists found quite a few old reference books, one of which contained the original recipes for the beers brewed at the abbey several hundred years ago. We didn’t hesitate for a second and decided on the spot to recreate one of these mythical beers.

This beer, which will be our Zwanze for 2013, therefore bears the name of its illustrious place of origin, Abbaye de Cureghem (Cureghem Abbey). Cureghem was formerly a village established many centuries ago on the banks of the Senne, the river running through present-day Brussels. The area was very heavily industrialised during the 19th century and, among other things, became home to many breweries. Today, it is part of the municipality of Anderlecht.

Since beers commonly referred to as “abbey beers” are not, or not any longer, products of spontaneous fermentation, we decided to brew a top fermentation beer, from a technical point of view in any case. The yeasts were selected in collaboration with Institut Meurice, a post-secondary college in Brussels specialising in biotechnology. Brewed in March 2012, our “Cureghem” beer fermented four weeks in stainless steel tanks before being blended with 10% lambic and pumped into 400-litre barrels of various origins. After maturing for six months, the beers were blended and put into casks or bottles to undergo re-fermentation and reach 7.2% ABV (Alcohol by Volume).

Inevitably, a top fermentation beer brewed in a spontaneous fermentation environment will be affected by the wild yeasts in the air, and this is certainly what happened in our case. For our Cureghem, the cultured yeasts were clearly the main factor behind primary fermentation and I think that the wild yeasts in the beer will instead play an increasingly important role as the product ages. However, despite the addition of the lambic to give it a little “extra something” in terms of character and ageing characteristics, this Zwanze cannot in any case be considered a spontaneous fermentation beer.

The long fermentation period coupled with the presence of wild yeasts lends this beer a solid character with a dry finish that lingers on the palate, while the combined use of fresh and aged hops yields both freshness and bitterness. Moreover, the different malts used give this year’s Zwanze a coppery colour along with a touch of caramel and candied fruit that provide body. Clearly, this is not your standard “abbey” beer but, perhaps, it is representative of what these beers were one or two hundred years ago.

I would also like to remind you, dear friends, that in Brussels dialect “zwanze” is the word used to refer to a type of semi-sarcastic humour typical of our lovely city of Brussels that one often encounters at Cantillon Brewery. So please bear in mind that the monastically-tinged story behind Zwanze 2013 is also a bit of an allusion to abbey beers and the related legends propagated by numerous breweries.

Nobody knows if the Abbey of Cureghem ever actually existed, and some people think it’s a direct product of the zwanze-imbibed imagination of the team at Cantillon. On the other hand, others are still digging to try and uncover all the secrets of Father Faro…

Monk’s Cafe [Official Site]