40 Years of Sidebars: Hugo Claus, Frans Masereel & NABC’s one-off Silent Oath Oud Bruin (2004)

This Belgian cultural excursion didn’t slot handily into the “40 Years in Beer” narrative, and so I’ve declared it suitable as a “sidebar.” The chronological link is here:  40 Years in Beer (Book III), Part 91: New Albany’s brewing history, prior to NABC resuming it During early 2004 or thereabouts, NABC’s founding brewer Michael Borchers produced a damn fine Belgian ale. Silent Oath: “The joy in Belgium” … drawn from an episode in Hugo Claus’s novel, “The Sorrow of Belgium,” it was Belgian-style Oud Bruin/Old Brown, perhaps with a hint of intentional sourness. A portion was aged in oak chips. “Perhaps” used in reference to sourness aptly summarizes the improvisational nature of our early brewing experiments. Was it really intentional? In any event, the experiment was much fun, little pressure and financially sustainable. Those were the days, my friends. Had I grasped Brugge Brasserie’s and Taxman’s Brewing’s business models, NABC’s beer making might have turned out quite differently. The Sorrow of Belgium, Hugo Claus. The novel by Claus (1929 – 2008) is wonderfully insightful, dealing with society and politics in Flanders (the Flemish-speaking half of Belgium) before and during WWII; specifically, Claus tackles the thorny issue of collaboration with the occupying Germans. Although Claus is a stirring eclectic who...Read more