Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Food CriticA new microbrewery brings to Spring Hill beer from one of the world's best producers, Belgium. And in St. Petersburg, a corner of Austro-German cuisine gets bigger.
So there's no nip in the air, only a pigskin or two, but it is fall, and fantasies turn to beer and brats.
This October, our corner of Florida has new sources of each, although this fest needn't be German. Indeed, the beer we are newly blessed with comes not from Germany but Belgium.
That's our great fortune, for that small country is arguably the home of the world's best beers.
Few nations produce more, and more distinctive, kinds of beer than Belgium: old brown ales, tripels, lambics and abbey ales, seasoned with all kinds of hops, spices and fruits, from pepper to black cherry, and sometimes aged. And none makes beer so much like wine that it makes special glasses for each kind of beer to enjoy it better.
And now we get a rare sample of those beers brewery-fresh.
Beer connoisseurs treasure beers and ales imported from Belgium and pay $5 a bottle and up for the most extreme, high-alcohol beers. Home brewers and brew pubs consider making a good "Belgian" a significant achievement.
Our beers come direct from a Belgian microbrewery and restaurant opened by ninth-generation brewmaster Leen Sterkens in Spring Hill. She and partner Serge Van Limbergen spent two years and more than $2-million to build her family's first American microbrewery, Saint Sebastiaan, installing gleaming beer tanks and vats (and digging a cellar!) in a very bland stretch of U.S. 19 in Hernando County.
Before asking why, doubting beer fans should lift a glass of Spring Hill Blond, the best.
In a goblet with a lightly fluted edge, the color is cloudy, yet an appealing light bronze shines through. There's a solid head, but the beer smells like it is made of flowers and citrus. From the first swallow, it's exceptional beer, only a touch sweet at front, with intriguing hops and a winey acidity that gives it balance and crispness. It packs more than 5 percent alcohol, yet finishes long and pleasant on the tongue - and the tummy.
Saint Sebastiaan makes three brews for now. Go elsewhere for Bud or Heineken. Stick around for an occasional fourth (I hope for a crisp, tart Saison ale, perfect for our heat.) The other two bookend the Blond, but not in typical ways.
The 1731 Dark is chocolate brown like a porter or stout and has a head that shames Guinness, but it's from the family of old brown ales the Flemish call oud bruin. The 1731 is husky in alcohol (5.5 percent), yet not heavy with malt or syrupy sweet. It has a hint of caramel, but the hops add subtle bitters, and the body is thinner than expected. The lighter beer, the Novice, is 3.5 percent alcohol and crisp and distinct, but it's hardly light by American terms. The Novice and the Blond prove what lovers of fine beer have finally learned, that the best beers don't have to be dark, especially in Belgian hands.
These beers are not for every palate; a few locals at the bar puckered their faces and switched to mixed drinks. "It's nasty," one scorned. Such naysayers easily were outnumbered by SRO crowds at the 200-seat restaurant the first week. At 6:15 one evening I found a 30-minute wait for a table; at midafternoon the place was three-quarters full.
Saint Sebastiaan's food hasn't the same pedigree or polish. The menu is largely staples of meat, chicken, fish and pasta, and the Belgian offerings are modest and quite approachable: chopped mushrooms and peppers on toast, a pea-green soup, beef skewers and a thick, hearty beer-beef stew. Fries we call french are Belgian, but those I tried were not brag-worthy. Although there was fish salad and fish in leeky cream, my dream of mussels and fries will be only a seasonal special. Desserts include a mousse of Belgian chocolate.
Though skeptics in the Tampa Bay area's small brewing fraternity thought that retirement villages and bedroom communities were an unlikely place for sophisticated beer, the Belgians' optimism may have been justified.
"We looked from Orlando to Tampa, and we chose here because we could be part of the community and make a difference," Van Limbergen said.
He and Sterkens have, perhaps feeding a thirst for more than Outback-Chili's-Applebee's and pouring serious beer for $3.
It's not just for the locals. If you care about good beer, this is a destination not too far (from the Tampa area near the airport, one could take the Veterans Expressway 30 miles north to County Line Road).
The other new source of food and drink with an October accent is Cafe Vienna Too in downtown St. Petersburg, a branch of a small Austro-German cafe in the Snell Isle neighborhood of northeast St. Petersburg. Owner Beate Klobucar revamped the former Hilda La Tropicana Cuban restaurant with artwork taken from old engravings in German and a menu of sausage and schnitzels, and is still getting the kitchen and service in shape.
Best of the wurst for me was a plate of big, fat knockwurst and a spicy bratwurst. (I always pick white veal brats over porky ones.) There's also a Hungarian debrizener closer to a frankfurter and a thick, dense leberkaese. Most come with homemade sauerkraut (prepared with bay leaves and peppercorns, but too much salt) and nicely sour potato salad. Potato pancakes were too thick and too close to hash browns for me. Beyond sandwiches, entrees include schnitzel, paprikash and stroganoff with polenta, cabbage and spaetzle. Beer on tap is very German: Tucher and Warsteiner.
Saint Sebastiaan and Cafe Vienna Too are new renditions of very old flavors and in varying stages of completion.
Such fine beer especially is worth a toast.
Saint Sebastiaan Belgian Microbrewery
1320 Commercial Way (U.S. 19)
Spring Hill
(352) 666-2141
Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday-Saturday; 11:30 to midnight Sunday.
Details: Full bar, no smoking, credit cards, wheelchair accessible.
Features: On-site brewery, tours by arrangement.
Prices: Lunch, $6.49 to $9.99; dinner $7.99 to $18.99.
Cafe Vienna Too
320 First Ave. N
St. Petersburg
(727) 502-0743
Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.
Details: Beer, wine, no smoking, credit cards, wheelchair accessible.
Prices: $5.90 to $11.90.