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First I want to single out a few beers that color inside the lines, so to speak—beers you could see as homages to or re-creations of traditional Belgians. (I tried fewer than half the offerings at the festival, so please take it as a given that this isn’t an attempt to name “the best” but merely “the stuff I got to that I particularly liked.”)
Of course I dropped in on my buddies at Pipeworks, who were pouring just one beer, a strong Belgian golden called Pineapple Bling—they’d loaned the other half of their jockey box to Drew Fox of 18th Street Brewing, whose Chloe French saison is brewed with hibiscus and blood orange, giving it a subtly tart, fruity finish to balance its richly yeasty breadiness.
The Transient Facebook page has only existed for a few days, and Belgian Fest was the first time any of its beers had been tapped in Chicago. All the same, Betts tells me he hopes to have kegs in Chicago bars within four to five weeks.
And now it’s time for the metal! Or the grindcore, in case you’re one of those people who doesn’t consider grindcore metal. Easy choice today: It had to be Portland band Transient, whose lead singer, Krysta Martinez, recently replaced Grace Perry in Phoenix death-metal outfit Landmine Marathon. Tomorrow on Six Weeks Records they release their first full-length, after years of splits and EPs, and Pitchfork is streaming the advance track “Positivism.” (You’ll have to click through to hear it, thanks to the site’s proprietary player.)
