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The more I speak with brewers, the more I’m realizing that there are two types of breweries: specialists and generalists. Lowell-based Enlightenment Ales falls firmly in the specialist category, as possibly the only commercial brewery in the United States producing bière de champagne using the traditional méthode champenoise. To explain this mouthful of French and to let me in on what’s next for the three-year-old brewery, I contacted founder and one-man army Ben Howe.
Could you explain the bière de champagne style for beer drinkers who might not be familiar?
Sure. So, my understanding of the style – at least from the ones I’ve had from Belgium – is it’s a beer that both drinks very much like a champagne or sparkling wine and uses the traditional bottle conditioning, riddling, and disgorging process to produce carbonation and remove the yeast sediment. The way I’ve approached it is to brew big, dry golden ale using Belgian yeast and lots of sugar for a fruity, spicy yeast character and a super light body. Once the Belgian yeast is done doing its thing, I pitch champagne yeast into the FV to finish off those last few sugars and really dry the beer out.
The goal, at least as I see it, is to use bottle refermentation to produce that fierce and fine champagne-like carbonation and then remove the yeast sediment, thereby cleaning up the mouthfeel and clarifying both the appearance and flavor of the beer.
The craft beer industry is all about support and collaboration. Have you had any fellow brewers step in as mentors or advisors along the way?
Absolutely. First off, Will Meyers at Cambridge Brewing Company has been a mentor to me since I started at CBC back in 2007 and continues to help me out on a daily basis. Dann and Martha at Pretty Things have been invaluable resources and very generous friends. They were kind enough to sell me 6 of their 5 gallon kegs, and Dann has taken the time to answer millions of my asinine questions about water chemistry and yeast management. Ben at Wormtown sold me Citra when I really needed it and helped me out quite extensively with my TTB [Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau] application.
Honestly, I don’t have nearly enough time to list all of the brewers who have given me help and advice when I needed it.
I heard you were working on an anonymous American bitter. What’s the inspiration behind the names of your beers?
As far as my core beers go, the names are a part of the experience I’m attempting to relate to people. Cosmos, for example, is an attempt to relate the experience I had of stargazing in late October in the White Mountains on a completely moonless night. It was me and a group of my friends out exploring with only a growler of CBC Porter to keep us warm. I wanted to make a beer that conveys the sense of wonder I felt as I gazed into the cosmos and the friendship and community I experienced passing around and swigging from a growler and sharing that moment with other human beings. Also I love Carl Sagan.
Seriously though, I feel that heightened states of awareness and experience are fundamentally important and want to celebrate them with the beers I make; hence Enlightenment, Illumination, etc.
What’s in the pipeline for Enlightenment?
Well, it’s hard to say. Right now, I’m test batching an American bitter (as a draft and cask release only for the time being) as well as some homebrew-sized batches of Brett Saisons. I’m also brewing 9 or so bbl of a funky, hoppy farmhouse ale and letting it sit on Brett all summer long. Look for Transcendence in the fall!
In other news, I’m not entirely sure what the path forward for Enlightenment is. My system is VERY small. While I’m still having fun, I’m beginning to wear out doing this all myself. I’m actively looking for a way to scale up my production, be that a partnership, an outside investor, or taking my ideas to another brewery. We’ll see. Know anyone looking to own a weird brewery with a crazy brewer?
