Duet is Damm's new beer, sour, of the sour ale type, with double fermentation, and with a gastronomic vocation. It was recently presented at the Fòrum Gastronòmic de Barcelona, but it saw the light, literally, in Mas Marroch, one of the reference spaces of the Roca brothers. In a launch event for professionals and specialized press coordinated by the gastronomist and university professor Anna Riera, the hosts, the three-Michelin-starred Joan, Jordi, and Josep Roca, each from their own position, detailed the values that this very special beer holds for them, a beer that "will appeal to those who don't like beer."
"We have been collaborating for a long time. It all started before the pandemic, we managed to see the positive side of the confinement and gained time to do tests, to know how to approach the project and to be creative," explains chef Joan Roca, the eldest of the brothers who created the two-time best restaurant in the world (2013, 2015). "We wanted a well-made beer and we have achieved one that is very gastronomic, very Mediterranean," he points out, unable to hide his pride at having managed to crystallize their first brewing project after two years of working, side by side, with the Damm team.
The name Duet designates the duplicities that define this beer very well. Firstly, it is the fusion, unexplored until now, of two apparently antagonistic worlds that converge in the special result of this new drink: that of beer and that of wine. On the one hand, barley malt, and on the other, white Grenache must; two landscapes that are drawn in aromas and flavors: that of the Mediterranean described by the barley along with the sensation of freshness upon entering the mouth, and Terra Alta, present in the fruity notes of white Grenache, an emblematic variety of the land that Picasso chose to "learn everything." It is also the result of a double fermentation. But, above all, it signifies the double collaboration between the inspiration and art of Joan, Josep, and Jordi Roca, from Celler de Can Roca, and the mastery and technology of Damm.
"We wanted to symbolize the union of cultures, the connection between two products ---beer and wine--- that embrace each other since Ancient Egypt," explains the multiple National Gastronomy Award winner and family sommelier, Josep Roca, in Mas Marroch, adding that they chose to use the queen grape for the white wines of Terra Alta to give it "a Mediterranean touch." "White Grenache brings luminosity, freshness, a landscape, which is an indispensable element to understand Mediterranean gastronomy. That's why we have focused on white Grenache after trying other red fruits," adds the sommelier.
The master brewers and Damm's technology, after two years of work with dozens of trials and the pandemic in between, achieved the controlled reproduction of wild fermentation processes. Duet is made with a mixture of white Grenache must, barley malt, hops, yeast, and lactic bacteria (Lactobacillus) that provide acidity and allow for a wide range of gastronomic pairings. Yeasts are then added to complete its fermentation, generating a beer with sour and acidic notes, balanced with high aromatic intensity, full of nuances and, above all, very gastronomic.
For Josep Roca, "the acidity of this beer provokes a smile," like "a comforting and stimulating project." He describes Duet with a contagious passion that makes it very difficult not to want to try it: "this acidic beer is luminous, radiant, intense, fresh, agile, it is loaded with vivacity, with a silky texture, that glides on the palate and tongue." For the sommelier, it is precisely the Grenache grape that brings complexity, verticality, and freshness to the tasting of Duet, which "aromatically plays with flowers that lead you to hops and to the fruity part that you recognize with beer." It is also "a beer that awakens the taste buds, with an explosive entry, an irreverent sensation, but which goes down very well at the end of the mouth."
Josep Roca, author of an infinite number of great pairings, believes in this case that the introduction of white Grenache opens up the pairing panorama and turns this 5.5% alcohol volume beer into a new gastronomic option, since, "the salty combination and the acidic flavor marry very well. Duet links with the Mediterranean diet, cured and salted foods, as well as escabeches and roasts." And he adds, "although Duet works excellently with sophisticated products like caviar and oysters, it does so equally well with simpler ones like fried fish, calamari a la romana, and even rotisserie chicken, white meat to which an acidic touch is added," he points out.
Each of the Rocas described Duet from their perspective and based on their specialty. Thus, the third of the brothers, Jordi Roca, best pastry chef in the world and, by his own definition, "a dessert maker," added with a laugh "that I proposed the new beer be called "VI-RRA," with a 'v', "because of how much it has to do with the world of wine too."
Damm is a brand with a vocation to produce beers, both tremendously popular in terms of consumption, like Voll or Estrella, and elite for high-end restaurants, and which has been characterized in recent years by creating signature beers, with the collaboration of great experts. Damm embraces quality beer types that previously could only be enjoyed in the world of craft beers, and thus references like Inedit, Ipa Complot, and Malquerida emerge. But what Damm had not yet produced was a beer like Duet, of the sour ale type, which signifies an almost primitive brewing style and relatively little known among the general public, but not among great beer enthusiasts who venerate it. The new beer evokes the origin of this drink as it was made thousands of years ago, when bacteria and wild yeasts fermented freely and spontaneously without any control, neither of temperature nor of the fermentative process.
Jaume Alemany, Damm's marketing director, acknowledges that "this project, which has lasted two years, has been the most difficult beer Damm has made, due to the challenge of working with grapes and adding lactic bacteria (Lactobacillus) to provide acidity."