Brasserie Dupont's Posca Rustica on NPR

Beer To Cheer Your Summer Supper

I am a fan and subscriber of National Public Radio. One of the many reasons is Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition.  Recently, a segment aired in which Scott asked Graham Haverfield, a rising star in the beer world, to recommend three beers for summer.   Posca Rustica was Simon's favorite. This rare gruit* from the Brasserie Dupont is garnering acclaim from publicans, journalists, top retailers, and foodies who love beer.  If you haven't tried it, you're in for a real treat!  It's the sweetest of the Dupont beers. An excerpt from the Weekend Edition broadcast: "This is a very cool beer, this is basically like a history lesson in a bottle... This is beer like it was brewed back when the Romans were in occupation of Belgium.  Beer in that era had no hops at all, he adds, making it the opposite of the modern IPA. "They used this mixture of spices and herbs to add bitterness to the otherwise sweet beer... It tastes old, not as in not fresh, it just tastes, like, arcane. ... Something like grilled artichokes or rotisserie chicken, anything served at a big table, this would add a great complement to that." - Graham Haverfield, Beer Director for the Wine Library Posca Rustica, known as Cervesia in Belgium, is a “Cervoise” beer inspired by research by Dupont into the drinks of the Gallo-Roman era, and spiced with a dozen herbs, including sweet woodruff and bog myrtle. Bottle-conditioned, beguiling, and unusual, Posca Rustica has a unique, odiferous and spicy character. I'd like to discover what beer tasted like when Belgium was ruled by the Roman Empire.  This beer is served at Archeosite D'Aubechies an open air museum near the brewery, which is all well and good. Unfortunately, according to the BeerMenu website, it is not yet available within 100 miles of Washington, DC.  * an old-fashioned herb mixture used to bitter and flavor beer before hops came to predominate