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Ale Asylum: Brewing Beer in Sanity
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Ale Asylum entrance
Tucked away in an unassuming corporate building on Madison's East side, the Ale Asylum brewery and brewpub has been brewing and serving beers in sanity for three plus years now. Within its walls lies a veritable treasure trove of goodies: flavorful ales, several lagers, and even a delicious sandwich or two.
Founded in 2006, Ale Asylum uses the motto "Brewed and Bottled in Madison. Fermented in Sanity" to explain its stance on brewing. In brief, brewing in sanity refers to the making of unfiltered, all natural beer with no additives or preservatives. Ale Asylum also bottles several of its beers, in the only bottling facility to operate in Madison.
Such quality control, starting from the actual conception of the beer to its final release into area stores, ensures that Ale Asylum beer tastes and looks exactly as its founders intended.
Brewmasters and entrepreneurs Otto Dilba, Dean Coffey, and Chris Riphenburg (represented as the three points in the Ale Asylum logo) initially worked at the Angelic Brewing Company in downtown Madison. When Angelic closed its doors, the three found financial backing from local brewers and
Ale Asylum's Tripel Nova
struck out on their own. Within Ale Asylum's first year of operation, over 800 barrels of beer were produced. For 2009, approximately 5,500 barrels are expected.
Beer quantity, however, is a matter best left to the macrobrews like Miller and Budweiser. Microbreweries cherish quality above quantity. So, does Ale Asylum stand up to the test?
I recently darkened Ale Asylum's threshold on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Most of the patrons had decided to sit in the brewpub's outdoor biergarten, leaving me the majority of the inside bar. I noted a total of 10 beers on tap, including regular brews like Ambergeddon Amber Ale, Contorter Porter, Madtown Nutbrown Ale, and Hopalicious. Accompanying these beers were several seasonals, such as Big Slick Stout (Oatmeal Stout), Happy Ending (Belgian style Abbey), Gold Digger (Blonde Ale), and Satisfaction Jacksin (a hopped Pale Ale). I decided upon the Tripel Nova, which is a Belgian style Tripel. I was warned that the beer carried a 10% ABV.
Bring it on, I said.
The Tripel was served to me in a goblet and carried about half an inch of rich, foamy head. There was
Ale Asylum's brewpub, with a view of the brewery
a very faint trace of fruit/citrus in the brew, which surprised me (I'd been expecting a stronger whiff).
Partaking of the contents in the goblet, I was further surprised by its subtle sweetness and lightness. While Belgian ales are actually not supposed to carry a heavy malt taste, many breweries oversaturate Belgians with malt, making them "heavy" so as to increase their alcohol content. Belgians are more correctly made by adding in Belgian candy sugar, which is actually inverted sugar (sucrose processed into its constituent glucose and fructose). Yeast process inverted sugars much faster than the more complex sucrose, giving the desired end product, alcohol.
Before my goblet was even half empty I could already feel the effect of the yeast's earlier sugar rush. As expected, Ale Asylum had come through once again and had produced a proper Belgian Tripel. Even better, I learned that this beer was available not just on tap, but in bottles too.
One of the qualities I really admire about Ale Asylum is that each of its beers is unique, with its own distinctive character. You won't mistake an Ambergeddon for a Hopalicious, or a Tripel for a Hatha-Weizen. While other breweries around Madison tend to make beers that run into each other, Ale Asylum's beers stand out, each one carrying its own bold taste.
In conclusion, here's a view of what's going on behind the bar at Ale Asylum, in Madison's only bottling facility:
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