Switzerland is not known as a nation of revolutionaries, but in the craft beer stakes, Brasserie Trois Dames, leads the charge.The brewery in Sainte Croix, in the French-speaking part of the country, produces everything from awesome sherry-barrel-aged wild beers to strawberry wit beer and porter brewed with dates. Appropriately based near the border with France, founder Raphael Mettler and his team are pushing the frontiers of Swiss craft beer.
The label art for the brewery’s year-round double IPA, Pasionaria (9% ABV) channels its heroine namesake, depicting a female revolutionary flying a flag of hops. It’s fitting, as this is a beer worth fighting for – one you want to stand behind. It pours syrupy copper in colour, with an off-white head that soon reveals the burnt umber goodness beneath. The aroma is subtle pine and honey.
A guerrilla wave of boozy warmth
Trois Dames Pasionaria is not just toffee in colour, but taste too, with a sweetness of candied fruit. Hopped with simcoe and amarillo hops, it has the zest and bitterness you want from a DIPA, with big citrus notes, mostly orange. The 9% alcohol is well hidden until the finish, when a guerrilla wave of warm booziness sneaks up on you.
There’s a craft beer revolution happening in Switzerland and if I had to pick a beer with character to garner support, it would be this one. Viva la Pasionaria! Viva la revolution!
