Destinations: Healthy Spirits (Monk's Cafe - Flemish Sour Ale)

Destination: Healthy Spirits. I'm not lying when I say there was a bit of a flutter in my heart as I left the Women's Community Clinic to head to Healthy Spirits this evening after finishing a weekly volunteer shift. Riding MUNI (with all its recent travails) has never felt this awesome, even with the transfer.

Healthy Spirits in San Francisco, located on the corner of Castro and 15th, is your local corner store. Owned by Rami Barqawi, Healthy Spirits sells plastic-wrapped pastries, sandwiches, coffee, cookies, Middle Eastern foods made by "Rami's Mommy"... and the most amazing selection of beers One Woman has seen in the Bay Area. Indeed, they claim to have the largest beer selection in San Francisco. The most amazing thing is that this large beer selection is a selection made mostly of beers you don't encounter at you average grocery store! Dave Hauslein, the beer manager at Healthy Spirits, told me that the store itself has been around as a corner store / deli for eleven years. It has been a specialty beer store for three. What I love about this family owned neighborhood store is that it totally has the feel and openness of a bodega or corner store (as they call them out here), but with the selection and quality of beer that's unparalleled by most beer stores. So, while Dave was responding to my barrage of questions about aged and sour beer, he also nuked and wrapped up a falafel sandwich for another customer who got dinner and a beer to go.

Aged and sour beer?! - Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Ale

One Woman learned today that there is a whole art and science to aged ales -- they can "peak" at up to 15 years! -- but let's leave this story for another time. The theme of the day is sour ale, actually, many of which are aged longer (a year is not uncommon) than many other beers. One Woman has tried "sour beers" before, with not too much success. I echo Jay of the Hedonist Beer Jive, who found that it took a few tries to come across a sour ale that made him a believer. On Dave's recommendation, I took home a 11.2 oz bottle of Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Ale. To my delight, I found a tart, invigorating, yet satiny brew, perfect for a warm California evening!

This beer is brewed and bottled by the historic family-owned Belgian brewery, Van Steenberge especially for the Monk's Cafe in Philadelphia. Aged in Oak barrels with cherry juices, this beer comes close to being a wine, both in process and in flavor. The big difference, of course, is the malt, yeast and lactic acid (!) present in this beer.

Opening the bottle, I caught some whiffs of the mouth-watering sourness, coupled with a tart cherry smell. The pour was pretty, with a mellow burgundy/brown color like a red velvet cake, topped with a creamy cinnamon froth. With very mild carbonation, and only 5.5 ABV, this sour ale goes down very easy. One Woman tasted dark brandied cherries, oak, and a hint of vanilla, with sourness, sweetness, and maltiness blended to blissful harmony. The sour was actually not even the most noticeable aspect of this beer, but I'm beginning to suspect that the particular batch that One Woman enjoyed was on the sweet, rather than sour side of the spectrum for this Flemish Sour Ale.

One Woman found that this beer makes an excellent accompaniment to a juicy salad of beets, fennel, citrus with mixed baby lettuces and a hard boiled egg. A big squeeze of California lemon on the salad brightened everything up one notch and brought out a sparkly zing in the beer.

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The musical pairing of this evening is Ornette Coleman's Shape of Jazz to Come. Released 51 years ago, Coleman's avant-garde is the kind that redefines not only the future of music, but once in the future, his music provides its interpreters with a language that encourages listeners to hear the past differently. Oddball (like a sour beer), perhaps, and certainly not in tune with the mainstream or with contemporaneous avant-gardes, Coleman possesses a profound knowledge of the range of human emotion -- especially the different flavors of joy: tangy, malty, and a bit sour with a whole lot of pizzazz.