Читать книгу Fifty Must-Try Craft Beers of Ohio - Rick Armon - Страница 29

Ermal’s Belgian Style Cream Ale

Warped Wing Brewing Co. | www.warpedwing.com

Warped Wing Brewing Co.

26 Wyandot St.

Dayton, Ohio 45402

(937) 222–7003

First brewed: 2014

Style: Cream ale

Alcohol content: 5.4 percent

IBUs: 20

Available: Year-round in 16-ounce cans

IF YOU LIKE THIS BEER, here are five other lighter Ohio craft beers to try:

• Sibling Revelry Lavender Wit

• Millersburg Lot 21 Blonde

• Rhinegeist Cougar

• FigLeaf Basmati Cream Ale

• Royal Docks 67 Alaska

ERMAL “ERNIE” FRAZE is one of the most important figures in the history of beer. Don’t know him? Well, he invented the pull-top can in 1959: an invention that meant beer drinkers, and soda drinkers for that matter, didn’t have to carry around a can opener to enjoy a brew.

Fraze, who founded the Dayton Reliable Tool Company, was at a picnic one day and, alas, had forgotten his can opener. He ended up using a car bumper to open his beer and decided that day that he was going to create a better can. The Ohio Historical Society estimates that more than 75 percent of American breweries were using his invention by 1965.

Warped Wing Ermal’s Belgian Style Cream Ale pays tribute to Fraze, not only with the name, but, in a sense, also with the beer itself, which is a style invented by brewmaster John Haggerty.

Cofounders Joe Waizmann, Nick Bowman, and Haggerty knew they wanted to offer an approachable beer in their initial lineup for Warped Wing, which opened in a former industrial building in downtown Dayton in early 2014. Waizmann and Bowman suggested a cream ale, a style with a deep history in southwest Ohio, thanks to Little Kings Cream Ale and a slew of former Dayton breweries that made it.

But, at first, the bearded Haggerty put the kibosh on that idea. He had nothing against cream ales, but the style just didn’t speak to him. So he set about to create his own variant. Ermal’s Belgian Style Cream Ale is a mash-up of a wit and a cream ale made with corn sugar, coriander, grains of paradise, orange and lemon peel, white pepper, camomile, and flaked oatmeal.

“It all kind of works together flavorwise,” Haggerty said.

Ermal’s has gone on to become the brewery’s best-selling brand. Today, the name Ermal is making a comeback in the Dayton community, and Fraze’s story—featured on Ermal’s 16-ounce can—is reaching a whole new generation.

“What’s impressive and cool for us is that the word ‘Ermal’ wasn’t in our daily lexicon,” Waizmann said. “A word like Ermal didn’t exist, and now people are relating to the word and associating it with the brewery.”