Joseph, Spelt, Belgium beer, Belgian beer glasses, Beer Travel, Global Beer Network

JOSEPH is a WIT, a real Wheat-beer. It is brewed from SPELT. Spelt is "poor-man's wheat". Spelt is a very old member of the wheat family.

New interests in health-food are reviving the demand for Spelt. The fruity, slightly acid taste of a real WIT-beer is here present, and it is enriched by an exclusive taste and aroma, that you don't find in any other WIT-beer.
The color is yellow, and cloudy, because of the nature of the beer (Wit, unfiltered) and the refermentation in the Champagne bottle. It is a very light and refreshing beer, 100% natural, brewed along the finest artisanal Belgian traditions. Maybe the only spelt-beer in the world.

Roll the bottle before opening!

FOOD-COMBINATIONS: It is a very light and refreshing beer, for 100 % natural, brewed along the finest artisanal Belgian traditions. Seafood and Salads.

It took the Brasserie de Silenrieux about one year to get certified as an Organic brewer, and it took us almost a year before we got the label approved by Federal and Californian authorities. They both needed a lot of proof that Joseph was really ‘Organic’. Lucky for us, the other States accept the authority of California in this matter. ECOCERT is the official institute in Wallonia controlling and certifying the Organic trade on behalf of the European authorities.

What is SPELT? Spelt is a member of the wheat family, in fact, it is its ancestor. Wheat is ‘spelta’ in Latin. Spelt gets new attention, especially by people who like health food, non processed, organic food. Contrary to regular wheat, spelt is pretty much still the same as it was many centuries ago. Wheat was bred out of spelt by farmers over a thousand year history to get variants producing more grain per ear, but demanding more fertile ground to grow, better protection from diseases, and extra fertilization. Spelt is also called ‘poor man’s wheat’. Spelt can grow on poorer grounds, and doesn’t need a lot of care to grow. Diversifying farmers in the USA and in Europe are growing spelt again. One of these farmers, Steve Rajki and his wife Joyce, out of the Cleveland OHIO area, joined us on our ‘Fun & Beer Tour: Belgium 2000’.

Joseph Spelt Ale, brewed by the farm brewery de Silenrieux in Wallonia, must be classified in the WIT category of Belgian beers. WIT stands for the Belgian style of wheat beer.

As you know: slightly fruity, a very pale color and cloudy. Joseph is refermented in the bottle, and lightly filtered. 100 % wheat beers are impossible to make, because wheat ties together, and the result is more bread-like than beer-like. Joseph, and all Belgian WIT beers, limit the wheat malts to about 30 %. The rest of the malt is barley malt. By the way, some pre-technical societies make a ‘beer’, a grain based alcoholic beverage, that is almost as thick as bread. A beer, that is literally eating and drinking at the same time. I read about such ‘beer’ in a travel report on Nepal.

Joseph falls into the prizes.

Joseph Spelt Ale is brewed by Br. de Silenrieux, a micro brewery located on a farm in the Ardennes. We were welcomed so warmly at the brewery on our 1997 Belgian brewery tour. Wheat is called Spelta in Latin, which let you understand, that spelt is the very original source of the wheat-family. Health consciousness make people go back to the original, unreinforced grain. The spelt for the Joseph is raised on the brewery's farm.

Joseph Spelt Ale is a very light beer in color and strength. Only 5 % ABV, with a pale yellow color and white head. Like most Belgian wheat beers, you can serve the beer cloudy, when you roll the bottle first to stir up the yeast and the unfiltered malt-particles. An other technique is not to roll the bottle, but serve three or four glasses in a row in a double movement: (1) you fill each glass only half, which will deliver clear beer since the beer comes from the top half of the bottle, and (2) immediately you divide the rest of the bottle between the glasses, which will deliver more cloudy beer, because you serve now the bottom of the bottle. As a waiter in a restaurant you can create a whole show, while serving the beer and telling the guests about the beer and the brewery. Especially when you serve the bottle in a champagne bucket. Joseph is an ideal beer for lunch, light and refreshing and excellent with salads or seafood.

Unlike American beer competitions, where you have an abundance of gold and silver medals to make everybody a winner, a competition in Belgium offers only 3 medals: gold, silver and bronze. In the said competition, the gold medal was won by a regional spiced Wallonian liquor, called "Peket". The bronze medal was for a "foie gras" (pate made from goose livers).Joseph Spelt Ale won the silver medal at the International Food Exhibition in Brussels October 1997. Especially its originality, the pure natural ingredients, its texture and taste were praised. Beer is considered Food in Belgium, thus beer competes with other food-products in a Belgian competition.
(newsletter 1/98)