Left to right: Piave, Kunik

Bière de Champagne

STYLE NOTES: Somewhere on the spectrum between beer and Champagne, between the working stiff’s draught and the beverage of swells, lies bière de Champagne. A new style that originated in Belgium and has made a splash in the United States, bière de Champagne offers beer lovers an ale worthy of life’s big moments.

Every beer has bubbles, but bière de Champagne has more. This hybrid beverage marries conventional beer ingredients—malted grain, water, hops, and yeast—with the méthode champenoise, the time-consuming and laborious process behind every fine sparkling wine. So after its initial fermentation, and possibly a second fermentation in tank, the beer undergoes yet another fermentation with more yeast in a thick-walled Champagne bottle. After months of aging, the bottles are riddled, or slowly upended over several weeks to force the yeast into the neck. Finally, the bottles are disgorged to remove the spent yeast, just as for fine sparkling wine; topped up with additional beer; and resealed with a Champagne-style cork and wire hood.

Poured into a flute—the ideal way to serve it—a pale golden bière de Champagne foams luxuriously and unleashes a vigorous mousse. At 10 to 12 percent alcohol, these costly brews have a rich, full body and a racy scent that leaps from the glass. Thanks to the Belgian yeast, their aromas lean heavily to fruit and spice, with hints of orange blossom, apricot, apple, ginger, lemongrass, and mulled wine. They don’t show much malt character or hops bitterness, seducing instead with lively effervescence, heady fragrance, and an off-dry finish.

Currently, the limited offerings in this category come from two Belgian breweries and one pioneering American producer, the Boston Beer Company. But the level of consumer interest in bière de Champagne suggests that this tiny niche will surely grow.

BEERS TO TRY: Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams) Infinium; DeuS Brut des Flandres; Malheur Brut Réserve.

CHEESE AFFINITIES: A luxurious triple-cream cheese is a slam-dunk match for fizzy bière de Champagne. The beer’s mighty carbonation helps scrub the palate clean between tastes of velvety cheese. Mellow, creamy blue cheeses also appreciate bière de Champagne’s bubbles and hint of sweetness, and hard aged cheeses with caramel or butterscotch notes jibe with the beer’s fruit and spice.

From New York State, Nettle Meadow Farm’s Kunik unites goat’s milk with Jersey cow cream to yield an original and luscious triple-cream cheese. Weighing about 12 ounces, Kunik offers a plush and spreadable off-white interior underneath its bloomy rind. The delicate aroma hints at clotted cream and cultured butter; the flavor is similarly subdued, with a muted nuttiness and no goaty tang. This cheese seduces with its richness and voluptuous texture, the ideal foil to a brisk and bubbly bière de Champagne.

L’Amuse Gouda, a 30-pound wheel matured by Dutch cheese merchant Betty Koster, demonstrates the impact of affinage (expert aging). Koster hand-selects young wheels from Beemster, a Dutch producer, and then nurtures them at her aging facility near Amsterdam for two years. On release, they are sublime, with a gem-like amber color; a firm, waxy paste dotted with protein crystals; and an aroma that marries butterscotch with whiskey. A nugget melts on the tongue, leaving the impression of a salted caramel. Bière de Champagne matches this fine Gouda in complexity and special-occasion stature, and the beer’s cider-like fruitiness rounds out the cheese’s burnt-sugar notes.

A cow’s milk wheel from northern Italy, Piave attains its peak of flavor when matured for six to twelve months. These older wheels, known as Piave Vecchio (aged Piave), develop a dense, firm texture similar to a young Parmigiano Reggiano. With aromas of toasted walnuts and butterscotch, Piave has a concentrated, caramel-like sweetness. It stops short of the candy-sweet intensity of L’Amuse, yet it shares the Gouda’s synergy with sassy, spicy bière de Champagne.

MORE CHEESES TO TRY: Bleu des Basques; Bleu du Bocage; Cashel Blue; Chaource; Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen Blue; Jasper Hill Constant Bliss; La Peral; Rouge et Noir Triple Crème Brie; Nancy’s Hudson Valley Camembert; Parmigiano Reggiano; Roaring Forties Blue; Seal Bay Triple Cream Brie.