Of course, if I had my way, I would be doing my drinking at home and
perhaps cooking. Invariably, Katie does not much care for my attitude, and,
quite frequently, I find myself actually having to interact with society. In this case, however, Brasserie V was a
place I had read about for some time before moving here and passing it up would
have been a huge mistake.
Brasserie V is a Belgian restaurant on Monroe Street on Madison’s near
west side. Built into a strip of
commercial enterprises, it sits in the heart of the community a few blocks from
Camp Randall. The food is local and the
beer is plentiful, with the menu listing options well into the hundreds. Getting there early on a Saturday is a must
if you want to eat. And eat you should.
We are seated at the first table in from the door.
The wood floors and deep mahogany bar drip with invitation to stay, talk and
slowly digest every morsel of sight and smell. The tap selection is robust with Belgians and my wife orders a SaisonDupont. Drinking Belgian on a summer day
is an easy decision, but I can’t ignore a special release and go with a Sixpoint
Nugget IPA from their Spice of Life series, which is something I might not get
a chance to try otherwise. The Nugget is
served in a proper snifter, with the cloudy gold and orange popping from the
dark corner of our table. The hops
(nugget, from whence the beer’s name comes) here are primarily for bittering. Grapefruit
on the nose with a touch of harshness on the tongue from significant spice
notes. A solid beer even if not my
favorite, but where it shined was on the first course.
Beer and food are often talked about as being a
great combination, but, much like with wine, only rarely do great pairings come
together. We go with a cheese course: blue,
10 year old cheddar, and a creamy cheese that was something like a harder brie.
The Nuggets shined with the cheddar. Allowing
the cheddar to slowly melt and coat the palate with rich fat is the best way to
sample the beer. The hop bitterness
subdues, shifting the flavor profile to the citrus grapefruit and wiping clean
the remains of the nutty cheese.
And in case you were wondering, the Saison Dupont
was exceptional. Served in a proper
Dupont glass the banana, apple and pear shine through. Saison Dupont never
disappoints but this was the first time I had a draft version. As a rule,
Dupont is recommended for any novice beer drinker looking to impress a snob but
still actually enjoy the contents in the bottle.
My next beer was a Bockor Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge.
An unblended lambic fitting the profile of a Flemish red. I won’t attempt to
pretend that more than two flavors exist here: cherries and sour. Deep rich cherry sitting in something akin to
balsamic vinegar. Outside of a Cantillon, this is as sour a beer as I’ve ever
had. Absolutely superb and perhaps the
only beer to truly make me pucker like I was biting into a lemon. While this may sound odd for a beer, the
sourness is a result of wild fermentation that’s as traditional as beer itself
and difficult to emulate. Months of
aging are required to truly develop the flavor of a yeast strain called brettanomyces
(brett).
The beer perfectly matched the rich meat of duck
confit sitting on a bed of swiss chard with bits of rhubarb. The duck confit was perfectly crisp and moist. The sourness of the beer cutting through the
oily fat and recharging the palate.
Brasserie V is doing everything right. The food is fresh and simple but executed
exceptionally well. The beer is served
properly and tasted phenomenal.
We're blushing... Thanks for the kind words.
ReplyDelete