Belgium

Petrus Winter Ale

by

I stopped in at Wegman’s the other night to pick up some beers for presents to my beer club colleagues, and while there I spied this handsome label and a fancy foil cover. I’ve never heard of Petrus before, but in case you can’t tell, I’m a big fan of Belgian beer, so I figured this was well worth a try (apparently this is a practice known amongst beer nerds as Belgian Roulette). So tonight I threw in my Blu-Ray of It’s a Wonderful Life, planning to catch up on some blogging and maybe do some wrapping with it on in the background. Of course, it didn’t take long, and I simply sat on my couch, mezmerized by the movie (one of my favorites of all time) and sipping on my beer:

Petrus Winter Ale

Petrus Winter Ale: Pours a dark red/brown, with a clearish appearance and a nice big light-colored head that quickly dissipates (no real lacing evident). Smells very fragrant, with Belgian yeasts and lots of spiciness apparent. Taste is malty sweet and a little tart, which is unexpected for this type of beer, but not entirely unwelcome either (It’s not a sour or anything, but it’s there). Lots of carbonation and a medium body make this an easy drink, and the relatively low ABV helps in that respect as well. All in all, not among the best of the Holiday Beers from this year (I think perhaps this would have suffered from double feature with the Ommegang, Bruery, or St. Bernardus beers that take top honors this year…), but a nice change of pace. B

Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet.

I think this marks the last new Holiday beer I’ll have this year. I’ll still got a bottle of Ommegang Adoration and Affligem Noël, one of which I’ll bring to share with my family, the other of which I’ll hog to myself. And there’s also the super secret New Year’s ale coming sometime next week as well. Other than that, I’ve been stocking up on some Stouts and other dark beers, which are at least wintery, if not exactly holiday themed. I’ll also probably put an order in for some brewing supplies next week, but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

Double Feature: Yet More Holiday Ales

by

Yeah, I’ve been a bit of a sucker for Holiday ales this year, probably because I love a good Belgian Strong Dark Ale, of which there are many Holiday variations. As such, I find myself playing Belgian Roulette, picking up beers based solely on the fact that they’re from Belgium and have pretty holiday pictures on the label. Last night, after my Samichlaus adventure, I had a couple of other beers:

Scaldis Noel

Scaldis Noël: I saw this tiny little bottle with the fancy foil wrapping at the store and thought it might be a good idea to play some Belgian Roulette. The bottle only contains about 8.5 ounces, which is quite the odd size for a bottle, but then, it also comes in at a hefty 12% ABV, so I’m actually glad it wasn’t too large. Pours a nice dark amber color with minimal head. Smells a bit boozy, and tastes that way too. It’s sweeter than the Samichlaus and maybe a bit more carbonated, but the flavor isn’t as complex. Indeed, I didn’t really connect with this beer all that much. It’s certainly not bad, but it reminded me a bit of how I felt about Mad Elf, though at least I had the small bottle around this time. B-

Beer Nerd Details: 12% ABV bottled (250 ml). Drank from a tulip glass.

Between beers, I cleansed my palate with a single cashew.

Weyerbacher Winter Ale

Weyerbacher Winter Ale: Not a Belgian, but I picked up a sixer of this and gave a few away to my beer club homies, saving a couple for myself. Pours a clear dark brown color, with about a finger of head that leaves some minimal lacing as I drink. Smells of roasted malts and maybe a bit of spruce. Tastes like it smells, with a dry roastiness coming through strongly, but the spices seem a bit lost. Mouthfeel is good, with solid carbonation and good drinkability. I’m not terribly familiar with Weyerbacher, but I was expecting something a lot stronger and more assertive than this. Instead, I got a pretty decent session beer (technically just a hair stronger than most session beers, but I think it would work fine) and there’s nothing really wrong with that… It actually reminded me of a less complex 2010 Anchor Christmas Ale (which makes a bit of sense, as they’re both classified as “Winter Warmers”). Not a bad beer by any stretch of the imagination, but I would have liked a bit more complexity (it probably didn’t help that I had had two relatively intense monsters before cracking this one open, but still). B

Beer Nerd Details: 5.6% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a goblet.

Well, I’ve nearly exhausted my supply of holiday seasonals, but look for a few more posts before the holiday, and apparently one New Years beer as well (I’m excited for that one, which I totally lucked into without even realizing it – keeping this one a secret for now).

Double Feature: Christmas Ales (Again)

by

Last Saturday’s double feature was the unlikely pairing of The Kids Are All Right (a family drama featuring two moms, their half-sibling children, and the sperm donor father!) and Silent Night, Bloody Night (an escaped serial killer dredges up a past tragedy on Christmas Eve). Sometimes when I have a disparate pair of films like this, I’ll find some unexpected similarities, but that’s not really the case here, except perhaps that I think both films are a bit overrated (though both are still good, in their own way).

On the beer side of things, I’m still working my way through recent holiday purchases:

St. Bernardus Christmas Ale

St. Bernardus Christmas Ale – First things firs, I love the label on this. It’s hysterical. It looks like a bad photoshop of the trademark St. Bernardus monk with a Santa hat and some snow. Fortunately, the contents of the bottle are much better than the label. Pours a dark, hazy brown, with a big head. Smell is yeasty with some dark fruits coming through. Mouthfeel is full of carbonation, with lots of dark frutiy flavors. The finish is almost like caramel. Surprisingly drinkable for a 10% ABV beer, I had no problem downing a 750 ml of this… It’s a really fantastic beer, one of the best I’ve had this season. A

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet.

I was quite pleased with the St. Bernardus, but it set a high bar… apparently, too high for my next beer:

Corsendonk Christmas Ale

Corsendonk Christmas Ale – I picked up a 4 pack of this a while ago and I had a couple before last Saturday, but damn, drinking this back-to-back with the St. Bernardus was a bad idea, as St. Bernardus is clearly the superior beer. This isn’t to say that this one is bad, per say, but it simply cannot hold a candle to the St. Bernardus (nor, I suspect, to my other favorite holiday beers). Pours a dark, clear brown color, with a big head. Smells fantastic, citrusy, spicy, and yeasty. It’s a little lighter than the St. Bernardus, and a bit less flavorful. Lots of carbonation, with a lighter, fruity sweetness and a spicy kick at the end, maybe some coriander. The finish is crisp. It’s a decent beer, but not at the top of the holiday seasonals. B

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV bottled (330 ml). Drank from a goblet.

A good night! Still have a few more holiday beers to get through, look for them soon…

Decembeer Club

by

Towards the beginning of every month, a bunch of friends from work and I meet up at a local BYOB and bring some new/interesting beers to try. This month’s haul:

Decembeer

It was a mostly holiday ale theme. Conditions aren’t exactly ideal for tasting, so take the following with a grain of salt, but here’s what I thought of each:

  • Affligem Noël: My contribution and one of my favorites of the night. Much like their dubbel, but a little spicier. Great beer that I plan to revisit in more detail this holiday season (I have another bottle on my shelf).
  • Anchor Special Christmas Ale 2010 – My other contribution, I’ve already written about this, but it went over well with other folks too…
  • Delirium Noël: Raisiny and sweet, another popular beer and something I want to revisit in detail.
  • Ridgeway Insanely Bad Elf: Super boozy red ale. Not terrible, but the high alcohol overpowers everything. I’m not sure I could drink a 12 oz bottle of this, but it’s interesting nonetheless…
  • Ridgeway Reindeer’s Revolt – Not as dark as the Delirium, but it shares that certain raisin smell and flavor, a little syrupy sweet too. Not bad.
  • Ridgeway Reindeer Droppings – Doesn’t sound appetizing, but a solid light flavored beer (technically an English Pale Ale). Not a favorite, but a decent session beer.
  • Ridgeway Warm Welcome: A reasonable brown ale, I think this one was overshadowed by some of the above beers.
  • Southern Tier Unearthly IPA – Solid DIPA, but not the top of the line (like Dogfish 90 Minute or Stone IPA)
  • Ridgeway Lump of Coal Stout: I suppose this is a reasonable stout, but there’s nothing special about it and there’s no holiday style to it either. Not offensively bad or anything, but not especially noteworthy either.
  • New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale – Nothing really holiday about this, but a solid session beer (I assume that this is someone’s Yuengling Lager style beer).
  • Unibroue La Fin Du Monde – A first time beer club attendee brought this. Hard to fault him for that, as I love this beer.

Well, that about covers it! Again, not an especially rigorous tasting session, with the palate cleansed by a burger and fries, but still, as always, a really good time. After beer club, a few of us hit up the local beer distributer. It being PA, we could only buy a full case of stuff, but someone became enamored with Anchor’s Christmas ale and bought a case of that, and four of us went in on a St. Bernardus variety pack (each of us got 6 St Bernardus beers, which is pretty awesome). As usual, I’m already looking forward to next month.

Best Worst Double Feature

by

Well, I’m cheating here. Two nights, two beers, and three movies. Not quite a double feature, but close enough! Or maybe not. The point of the beer double feature is to compare two beers of similar style, and the two beers below couldn’t be more different. On the filmic side of things, it’s a weekend of Trolls. One of the documentaries released this year that I’ve been really interested in seeing was Best Worst Movie. It’s about the movie Troll 2, once crowned as the worst movie of all time, but which has somewhat recently undergone a resurgence as a cult classic (a “so bad it’s good” kinda thing). Best Worst Movie was recently released on DVD, so in addition to adding it to my Netflix queue, I wanted to check out the movie itself… and Troll 2 is only available on a double feature disc of its own (with the original Troll). Intriguing, as those two movies have nothing to do with each other. Well, let’s just say that the movies are all just about what you might expect .

The original Troll is actually a pretty interesting movie. Terrible, of course, but very watcheable. Plus, it’s got midgets, a troll-filled musical number, and, I shit you not, a boy named Harry Potter who learns magic in order to defeat the trolls (seriously, Harry fucking Potter!?). Troll 2 is… hard to explain. I don’t really think it deserves the title of worst movie ever, but it’s certainly in the running. There are so many nonsensical components to the movie that I don’t really know where to start. There are no trolls in the movie, only goblins (perhaps a pedantic distinction, but the lack of trolls is part of the movie’s charm), and they all live in a town called Nilbog (that’s goblin spelled backwards!). They lure people to their town, turn them into trees and plants, then eat them (you see, the goblins are vegetarians! Yes, the movie is an attack on vegetarians.) But it’s so earnest and completely ridiculous that it’s almost endearing (and most certainly funny), and so the cult that’s grown around the movie makes some sort of sense. Best Worst Movie chronicles that cult and it’s rise throughout the naughts. The documentary is made by Michael Stephenson, who played the little boy in Troll 2. There are some interesting parallels between the film’s popularity and the way the actors view the film – they are as aware as anyone of the inadequacies of the film, but even they come around as the cult grows. The film gets a bit repetitive as it goes on, but that’s also part of the point. Even the actors start to get sick of the screenings and repeating the lines over and over again (“You don’t piss on hospitality!”) and attending weird horror conventions and the like. It’s an interesting bit of filmic nostalgia and I greatly enjoyed it, along with some beers!

Saison Dupont

Saison Dupont – The saison style of beer has apparently been somewhat endangered, but in recent years it’s had a bit of a resurgence, led by the likes of Ommegang’s excellent Hennepin, and also Saison Dupont, which was named by Men’s Journal as “the Best Beer in the World” a few years ago. Pours a slightly hazy golden color, nice fluffy head with some lacing as I drink. Smells great. Perhaps a bit of fruit in the nose, lots of spices (coriander? clove?), but nothing overpowering. Taste is sweet, citrusy and a little tart, with a full body, lots of carbonation and a bit of a harsh mouthfeel (as I’ve already established, that sort of harshness isn’t necessarily a bad thing). There’s a bitterness, but it’s not hoppy. Is it the best beer in the world? I have a terrible time choosing favorites and picking bests, but I could certainly entertain the notion, which says a lot. A

Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet (get it, goblin? goblet? Ha!).

Southern Tier Creme Brulee

Southern Tier Creme Brulee (Imperial Milk Stout) – Recommended to me by Kaedrin regular Sovawanea, I have to admit that part of the reason I wanted to try this was that it’s got such an evocative name. It just sounds like a perfect match. Pours a deep black color with a very thin, beige head. Smells very sweet, lots of vanilla and caramel. Usually the nose tapers off as I drink a beer, but not in this case – aromatic to the very end (even the empty glass gave off a strong scent). I didn’t notice it, but the bottle says to drink it chilled out of a snifter, and that makes sense given the great aroma this stuff gives off. That vanilla and caramel shows up pretty strongly in the taste as well, but it’s tempered by the roasty malt sweetness in a decidedly, well, creme brulee fashion. It’s not as roasty as other stouts I’ve had recently (either that, or the sweetness is overpowering the roasted flavors). I found myself drinking quite slowly (it lasted longer than the documentary), but that’s probably a good thing given the 10% ABV! Even so, it’s perhaps a bit too sweet for one person to drink an entire 22 oz bottle of this stuff. It gets a bit cloying towards the end… (apparently I’m not the only one who recently tried this and felt that way) Nevertheless, it’s an excellent and unique beer. It would make a nice after-dinner dessert to share with someone, and it’s also something that showcases the amazing variety of flavors that beer can have (it could be a decent gateway beer in the right scenario). B+

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (22 oz bomber). Drank out of a pint glass (apparently shoulda been a snifter though)

So two pretty different beers, but both are pretty great.

Grindhouse Double Feature: Tripels

by

One of the crimes of modern cinematic history is the failure of Grindhouse at the box office and the subsequent lack of proper DVD/BD distribution (which was, in itself, a result of the bad box office). Grindhouse was one of my favorite movies of 2007, so this was most distressing to me. Sure, the two feature films that made up the total experience were available individually, but they were different cuts of the films and they were missing one of the key features of the Grindhouse experience: the trailers. Amazingly enough, this egregious oversight was recently corrected with the Blu-Ray release of Grindhouse (in it’s full cinematic glory). Tonight, I watched that movie, and took the opportunity to retry two of my favorite beers. As I write this post, I’m watching the movie with the Audience Reaction Track on. It’s kinda lame. Just a lot of hooting, cheering, and hollaring. But the movie is awesome, so there’s that.

Westmalle Tripel

Westmalle Abby Tripel: Brouwerij der Trappisten van Westmalle is a Belgian Trappist Brewery, one of only 7 in the world. Yes, this beer is brewed by Monks, and as it turns out, they’re among the best brewers in the world (and have been for a long time). Some reading around on Wikipedia indicates that this brewery in particular is responsible for inventing (or at least popularizing) two key Belgian beer styles: the Dubbel and the Tripel (which I’m drinking tonight). Pours a hazy golden color with an impressively huge head. Lots of bubbly activity in the head, good retention and a smell of sweet malty goodness with a little bit of fruit and some spiciness added in for good effect. Taste of fruity malts and a yeasty kick, with a nice warming booziness. Good carbonation and medium body, a near perfect taste. It’s not hard to see why this beer is considered the standard for the style. A

Beer Nerd Details: 9.5% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet.

As Planet Terror ends and the glorious fake trailers begin, I pop the cork off what could be my all time favorite beer:

Unibroue La Fin Du Monde

Unibroue La Fin Du Monde: The perfect beer. Pours that same hazy gold color, with that same large, active head. There’s a bit less retention here, and the smell is more spicy. Taste has a similar malty goodness, and the spiciness is more pronounced – lots of coriander and orange peel detectable here, and maybe a little clove (these spices are seemingly favored by Unibroue, as a lot of their paler ales have that sort of mixture). Spicy sweet, this beer is perfectly balanced. Medium body and good carbonation, with perfect taste and like the Westmalle, the strong alcohol content gives it a nice, warming, boozy kick. The name translates to “The End of the World”, and given that name and the high alcohol content, this makes for a great last beer of the night (or, you know, if you ever think the world is going to end)! A+

Beer Nerd Details: 9.0% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet.

Whew, drinking two 750 ml tripels in one night is perhaps not entirely advisable, but if you ever cross paths with either of these, give them a shot. You won’t be disappointed.