MAD Beer - Salt

Mikkel Borg Bjergsø’s new collaborative project with Chef Jakob Mielcke (of the influential restaurant Mielcke & Hurtigkarl in Frederiksberg, Denmark) is both complicated and rather simplified. The project’s core releases to date include beers named Bitter, Salt, Sur (or Sour), Sød (or Sweet), and Umami: each exploring a core section of the palate—from very enticing angles. (The sweet one, for instance, included popcorn, lactose, and dark cassonade sugar.)

The Salt was our favorite of the MAD Beer lineup we sampled, and (in addition to salt) also includes light candy sugar, ale yeast + Brettanomyces, and pickled/“ume” plums. This pours hazy, with a deep golden color and resilient white head. The beer’s central mixture of citrusy Brett tartness set alongside fruity salinity is put forth enticingly in the aroma: tart grapefruits and lemon, a nice citric sharpness, plus apricot-like fruitiness, a clear salinity, and ripe plums. In some senses, Salt conjures what the commingling of a lambic and a gose might look like.

That pleasantly expressed salinity is just one of many moving parts here. This came across to us as being quite lambic-like, with an intricately developed citrusy tartness and funk, even the familiar touch of aged hops. There’s a vibrant bit of carbonation, toasty wheat, some touches of a juicy hop quality budging up against the fruitier, tropical-inclined aspects of the Brett. In addition to a nicely showcased salted plum quality, this turned out to be a beautiful sour too.