Sam: It would be way to easy to open this
episode with a pervy joke about wood.
But that WOOD be way too easy.
So get your minds out of the gutter, because
my pal, Tomme Arthur from Lost Abbey is here
today to talk about all things wood: aging,
grilling, flavors and more.
Sam: You can make a great beer with just four
ingredients: barley, hops, water and yeast.
But to make an extreme beer, those four ingredients
put together the same old way isn't enough.
This is Project Extreme Brewing.
Sam: We're headed to Dogfish Head Brewings
and Eats to get in the right mindset for all
the woodwork we'll be doing for this upcoming
brew.
Sam: Talk about the difference between what
we're doing here at Dogfish Brewings and Eats--

Tomme: Okay--
Sam: Our Mecca, our OG Brew Pub here in Rehoboth
versus what's in the book.
Tomme: The whole goal is to get an acidified
beer with a wood component.
I think while we're talking about a long-term
aging in our process, there's an ability to
do a short-term version here, and to really
be successful with it.
And the difference is that this would be a
kettle-sour versus barrel-sour.
Sam: So tonight is all about wood, Tomme.
We're talking wood.
Why are we standing directly downwind of a
fire?
Tomme: I don't know, man, you tell me.
Sam: What the-- what?
Why?
Why are we doing that?
So less smoky here, right?
Tomme: That's a little better, yeah.
Sam: Still close to the wood.
If you're getting your ideal barrels, is it
French oak?
Is it American oak?
What do you like best?
Tomme: I mean, we'd certainly prefer to have
French oak barrels to do our souring.
Sam: For home brewers that might be out there,
if you're thinking about starting to do your
first wood or barrel project as a home brewer,
talk about the most sort of common varieties
of wood in barrels that are available.
Tomme: I think the biggest challenge for the
home-brewing side of things has always been
volume.
I mean, there's a lot of barrels out there.
You can buy a 52-gallon bourbon barrel and
have it shipped to your door, but you need
a lot of liquid to fill that.
And so there's always been a question at the
small five to ten gallon side of things, how
do you get that oak character in your beer.
And I think that that's where a lot of the
oak alternatives have become pretty important.
You know, we've got oak spirals, you've got
oak shavings.
What's cool about these is that they've got
great surface area, and they really allow
for just a nice contact of the beer and the
surface area.
You know, they don't take up a lot of space
in terms of getting flavor on them.
There's a lot of nice toasted and spicy notes
that come out of these with not a ton of contact
contact time.
Sam: And then tomorrow we'll be using these
staves, because we'll be doing this batch
in stainless, but we do want to pick up some
wood character.
Sam: Put it in there.
So enough about wood.
Let's talk some fruit.
Sam: Tomme's recipe for Peche de Tomme calls
for wood-grilled peaches, and luckily for
us, the Dogfish Inn has a cowboy cauldron,
so we got to grilling.
Tomme: And you're just a smoke machine.
Sam: I attract it.
Tomme: God.
Sam: I got to take a pee before we go across...
Tomme: Okay.
Tomme: Should I wait outside?
Sam: No, no, no!
We've known each other for a decade-and-a-half.
It's a one-banger.
Tomme: Oh.
Sam: You'll be fine. Wait, before we pee.
Boom, who are those guys?
Crazy, right?
So that was our first trip to Belgium for
the first Extreme Brewing book.
All right, I'll let you go to the bathroom
by yourself, then I'll go.
Sam: The next day, we took our haul of peaches
to our pub.
There we could tell that we needed to caramelize
quite a bit more.
So we utilized a large wood grill that we've
been making the pub's food on for over 20
years.
Sam: So you've been a long-time participant.
Not just of the movement of brewing outside
the lines, but the Extreme Beer Fest itself.
How do you define extreme brewing, and how
do you think extreme brewing's defined now
compared to ten years ago.
Tomme: Well, I think it was pretty easy ten
years ago to think that extreme brewing meant
this use of a lot of interesting ingredients
and processes, and a lot of nouveau things,
things that hadn't necessarily been done before.
But I think that the consumer is now in charge
of that definition, and the consumer defines
extreme brewing by what's-- you know, what
they're chasing.
I think for us, we think about extreme as
process.
It's always been a process-driven thing.
You know, that this is different, made different
by the additions and the way that we go about
building the beer.
But I think the consumer's defining it by
the rarity and some of the scarcity.
Sam: This is the part where I get to ask you
some more agro questions.
Tomme: You sure?
Sam: Yeah!
Tomme: Did I sign this in the contract?
Sam: Yes, yes, read the fine print.
Tomme: I don't remember reading the fine print!
Sam: What is the best thing about being a
brewer in a city with over 120 craft breweries?
And what's the worst or most challenging thing.
Tomme: The best is that I can still get to
a bar that's crowded and get a beer, sometimes
for free, right?
The worst part is that there's a lot of places
that are-- have opened up that are supporting
craft beer, and can't get to them, just because
there're so many of them now.
Sam: Go back and check in on the--
Tomme: There's shit in my beer, dude.
Sam: -- peach beer.
Oh, that'd be hops, my friend.
Tomme: Mm.
Sam: Good stuff, right?
Tomme: Yeah.
Sam: At the end of the day, we came up with
a tart Belgian-style brown ale.
And to keep up the spirit of the wood, we
aged on some beautiful French oak staves to
introduce a different nuance to this already
complex ale.
Sam: So at the end of the day, me and my old
buddy, Tomme Arthur came together and brewed a
beautiful beer called, whoo!
Peche de Tomme.
Basically, a slight sort of provincial take
on his classic beer, Cuvee de Tomme.
The luxuries we took, it's basically a Belgian-style
brown ale that we lovingly fed some lacto
to, and then we ferment it with caramelized
peaches that we caramelized ourselves over
wood fires at the Dogfish Inn and at the Dogfish
Brewings and Eats in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
You can see it's got a beautiful, rich brown
color to it.
A little bit of smoke, and a ton of fruit
in the nose.
Mm, that beer came out beautiful and complex.
Sam: So if you like the idea of this beer,
if you're thinking about getting into wood-aged
beers or sour beers, you're going to love
the Project Extreme Brewing book that we've
done here with the Alstrom's.
You can buy Project Extreme Brewing, anywhere
you shop for awesome books, but it's also
available at Dogfish.com, so get brewing!
