395. Ommegang Zuur and Brooklyn Kats

Today’s wandering tour of New York with Adam included a stop at the New Museum to see the Brion Gysin: Dream Machine exhibition (which was phenomenal), lunch at Katz’s Delicatessen, a quick matinee of Exit Through the Gift Shop, meeting up with Jenn, Stephen, and Stacy at d.b.a. for some beer sampling, and finally dinner at a restaurant whose name currently escapes me. So much culture, so little time...

We had our first beer of the day at Katz’s Delicatessen; listed as Katz’s Ale, it is made by Brooklyn Brewing. So pretty much a good call right of the bat. While the server didn’t know exactly what kind of beer it was, the easy money bet would be an American Brown. Whatever it was, it went perfect with the hot pastrami sandwich.

Adam in the background...

After a brief respite to take in Exit Through the Gift Shop—which, might I add, is a fantastic film—we wandered over to d.b.a. to meet up with Jenn as well as Stephen and Stacy, some more graduate school friends who have ended up in the greater NYC area. While I sampled the Pretty Things Baby Tree, and it was delicious, a quad on a warm afternoon doesn’t sit so well. Plus, the Ommegang Zuur was hard to resist—I mean, come on. Ommegang AND sour? Hot-diggety dog. I also got to try the Blaugies Saison D’Epeautre again, this time on tap, but I didn’t want to rub it in.

Ah, the big board.

I couldn’t find any descriptions of Brooklyn Katz’s Ale on the website, although I did find these pearls of wisdom from a drunk and surly Adam Goldfarb.

From Stan Hieronymus’s Brew Like a Monk website: “The Brewery Ommegang sour beer mentioned in the previous post now has a name: Ommegang Zuur. Larry Bennett, the minister of propaganda, provides some details about the beer brewed in collaboration with Liefmans in Belgium: ‘It’s a blended Flemish Sour brown. It’s a blend of two Liefmans beers: Oud Bruin, which is open fermented and then aged 6-8 months, and Liefmans Cuvee Brut, a new, fairly dry, kriek-style beer coming from Liefmans. The Cuvee Brut begins with Oud Bruin, then sits on cherries and is aged for a year. It’s then blended with more Oud Bruin and Goudenband.’”

Go Banksy!

(7/30/2010)