Because you've been good

A special festive One-Shot Wednesday for you today. It is Wednesday, isn't it? I think it is anyway.

I was surprised to discover that although St Bernardus Christmas Ale has been around as long as yuletide itself, I had never tried it. Here we go then. It's 10% ABV for some real seasonal cheer from the get-go. Pouring the dark cola-brown of a quadrupel it smells mostly like a typical strong and dark Belgian ale -- fruitcake and warming esters -- but I get a slight jangle of specifically Christmassy cinnamon and ginger. That's either midwinter magic or my heated imagination as no additional spices are listed on the ingredients. Ho hum.

The carbonation is very busy: no relaxing mellowness here. I am definitely getting Christmas spices from the flavour, so if it's my imagination, my imagination is legit generating mince pies. There's a sharpness that says ginger and clove more than anything else. The texture is surprisingly light given the strength, helped I'm sure by the cleansing fizz. Dense and sticky figs and plums emerge after the spice fades, and there's a tangy hop bitterness of the sort you're more likely to find in the work of new wave Belgian traditionalists like De Ranke.

While I can't complain about this beer -- the standard Bernardus quality shines through -- I don't see it as anything other than a novelty label. If you're after festive cheer there's no need to eschew your usual case of Abt 12. Happy Christmas, Ron.

Winter's last farewell

... for a while, anyway. I'm returning to my stash of Belgian winter ales and digging out just two more before I put them away.

First up, Wintersnood by De Verhuisbrowerij. Fact fans will be pleased by the three columns of dense text on the label giving not merely prosaic stuff like hop varieties and IBUs, but also batch size and fermentation temperatures. Beer fans will be less pleased by the humongous amount of foam it produces on even the gentlest of pours.

Eventually I got the rest of the beer out. And quite a lot of yeast sediment: thick turbid gobs of it, floating on the surface and cascading down the inside of the glass, with the garnet beer forming a backdrop. The nose is vinous and bready, suggesting a warming power much greater than 6.4% ABV might suggest.

Flavourwise it's a bit of a mess. There's a smooth and roasty chocolatey warmer in there somewhere, but it's beset by jarring sourness and yeasty funk. It's like there are three really good beers here, blended inappropriately in the same glass and all jockeying for the drinker's attention. A waste. What's next?

This guy looks altogether more suave: dark KlevereTien is the James Bond of Belgian winter ales (you can put that on the label, Hobbybrouwerij Het Nest, but I want credit). "Black and Strong" it says: the latter can't be argued with at 10% ABV, though it's more a red-brown than properly black. The head subsides quickly leaving just a ring of foam around the edge of a dark mirror surface which sparkles faintly.

Nothing really jumps out to begin with, little more aroma than a vodka martini (no I'm not letting that analogy go) but on tasting it's very much in the strong dark Belgian ale tradition, with figs, plums and similar dark fruit: think Abt 12 or Rochefort 10. It distinguishes itself with a dry roast coffee finish which adds a crisp cleanness you don't normally get in this sort of Belgian ale. They've done well here.

And with the glass empty, spring is unequivocably upon us, bringing the first of the season's Irish beer festivals. Chances are you'll find me down at George's Dock where the St. Patrick's Craft Beer Festival runs until Monday. If you fancy doing your bit to reclaim our national day from a certain foreign multinational corporation, join me there.

White geese

The beers of Goose Island are usually fairly recognisable, with their distinct logo and the name of the brewery in big letters. I'm not sure whether the white label Belgian-style ales are simply reflective of creativity, or if they're trying to pass these off as something other than your friendly neighbourhood goose.

The tripel (er, or not: see comments) in the set is called Matilda and pours a pale amber colour with very little by way of head, after the initial surprise of pouring this sort of beer from a screwtop bottle. That it's made with a Belgian yeast strain is immediately abundantly clear from the spicy aroma coming straight off the top. Expecting complexity, I was surprised at what happened next. The taste isn't much like a tripel at all. It's a touch thin and the dominant flavour is tannic. More than anything else it reminds me of sweet, slightly lemony, tea. It's quite a simple beer when it comes down to it, and I liked it for that.

The matching dubbel in the range is called Pere Jacques. It's appropriately dark, though like Matilda there's worryingly little sediment in it. They haven't bothered with the soft carbonation and thick foam of a Belgian dubbel, opting instead for decapitation and prickly fizz. Caramel and sherry dominate the aroma, and flavourwise we're talking nutmeg, molasses, plums -- all the usual stuff you would expect in a real Belgian dark ale, just without the weighty treacle body. Which, frankly, is a shame.

I paid over the odds for this pair (so did Reuben, for at least one). They're good, but they're not better than the Abt 12s, Tripel Karmeliets and Westmalles of this world, despite carrying a much heftier price tag.

Blind, or STFU

It started innocently enough nearly two years ago when I returned from Belgium full of the joys of Rochefort. I promised myself that at some point I'd sit down with the dubbel I believe to be my favourite -- Westmalle -- and the top two Rocheforts, and figure out which I liked best. Since then, largely due to Dave's infectious sense of sciencey fun, I've become massively enamoured of blind tasting as the only way one can really find out one's own opinion of a beer. So the taste-off, when it happened, would be done blind.

Then a little bit of project drift crept in: so much is written about Westvleteren 12 being supposedly the world's best beer, and I can't help thinking that its rarity value and resultant high price might have more to do with this than how it actually tastes. It would make sense that any blind tasting of strong dark Belgian ales should have one of these thrown in to see if its supposed brilliance shines through. And then I read that St Bernardus Abt 12 is made from basically the same recipe as Westvleteren 12, so obviously that should be included too. It's perhaps merciful that my own homemade dubbel was less than a week in the bottle or there would have been another.

As it was, last Saturday evening, Mrs Beer Nut and I lined up five bottles and five tasting glasses. With such complex beers I'm sure it's very difficult (and no fun) to do this properly scientifically, with all beers being the same age and kept in the same conditions for the same length of time. But these were of roughly similar vintages and had mostly been kept together over the 8-10 months they've been in the house. All were chilled in the same fridge to 10°C before serving.

While I was fetching the bottles, I reached over to tweet:

Preparing a blind tasting of Belgian ales: Rochefort 8, Rochefort 10, Bernardus Abt 12, Westvleteren 12 and Westmalle Dubbel. Which is best?

which garnered quite a bit of a response:

robsterowski@thebeernut Westvleteren is the best beer in the galaxy, everyone knows that. I've never had it but I know it is. ;)

StanHieronymus@thebeernut Curious to read differences perceived between R8 and R10. W12 could be the best on the table . . . or the worst.

Garthicus@thebeernut had my first Westy 12 a few weeks back & loved it.

maeib@thebeernut Rochefort 10 for me, although Berny 12 is very very close. The results of the tasting will make interesting reading

larsga@thebeernut Cool idea! I hope you'll blog the results? (Dumb question, I suppose. :)

thebeergeek@thebeernut r8

taleofale@thebeernut all good beers so the best is less relevent than the fun tasting.

And of course, Reuben is quite right: the fun bit is the most important.

The aim was to pick a favourite, but while I was at it, I decided I may as well have a go at trying to guess which was which. And I did get Westmalle Dubbel right, though I also had it ranked as my third favourite after what I had guessed were Rocheforts 10 and 8. Wrong!

The beer I picked as my favourite, the one with the most beautiful fluffy head, the one I wrote copious notes about, extolling its figgy nutty fruit flavours, on a big boozy base perfectly balanced by the spices, turned out to be Westvleteren 12. I will add, however, that it's still not worth upwards of €7 a bottle when you can go to the shop next door and buy any of the others for under a euro. Buy it to try it, but hunting after it and paying over the odds is just stupid.

In second place was a beer that tasted quite different -- with more of a gentle plummy roundness and nowhere near as much booze power, though quite dry and gassy with lots of stirred up sediment. Anyone familiar with Ron's anti-fizz stick should have no problem recognising the Abt 12. Definitely not a close relative of the Westvleteren.

As I said, I identified the third-place Westmalle correctly. I have it marked as sweet and quite strong-tasting which doesn't sound at all like Westmalle to me, and especially since, at 7% ABV it's quite a bit weaker than the others.

Finally, I couldn't pick between the last two so awarded them both joint fourth place. Both had quite a nasty cough-mixture heat to them that I found overpowering. I should really have known from the colour (third from the left) which one was Rochefort 8: it's supposed to be lighter than the others. Darker Rochefort 10 was no worse on the cough mixture front but lacked any extra complexities either.
(L to R: Westmalle Dubbel, Abt 12, Rochefort 8, Westvleteren 12, Rochefort 10.)

Or at least that's what I thought. Mrs Beer Nut found a caramel flavour in it which made Rochefort 10 her favourite. She actually put Abt 12 ahead of Westvleteren 12 in second and third place, finding the latter rather worty. The Westmalle she deemed rather light, and finally the Rochefort 8 got the wooden spoon from her for being too sweet.

I guess Abt 12 is our compromise beer, though I'm pleased to have a definitive answer that Westmalle Dubbel is still my general everyday drinking dubbel.

Lars Marius tweeted an interesting point on the poorly performing Rocheforts:

Were the Rocheforts new or old? They tend to have sharp higher alcohols when younger than 6-8 months. Much better when older.

Though I wouldn't describe what I found in the Rocheforts as "sharp", there's probably something to be said for leaving the remaining ones in the house to mature a while. To be continued...

And with the bottles recapped to keep the flies out, it was curry time. I went for Munsterbräu, a stubby-bottled lager that's been on super-special offer (10 for €5) in Superquinn for a while now. It's made in St Omer, France's beer capital, and somewhere with some cracking brews under its belt. And a lot of budget dreck.

Being in green glass, Munsterbräu is of course skunked, and the whiff hits the nostrils as soon as the cap comes off. The pour produces a fizzy lager on the pale side of pale. And yet... it's not awful. It's not in the least bit thin or watery, for instance, and there's no nasty sugariness, even when it warms. There's a slight thinness at the end, but it doesn't detract from it. Rather, it makes it less demanding and quite wonderfully refreshing when washing away vindaloo sauce: the main demand I place on my cooking lagers.

With the curry polished off it was back to the remains of the Belgians. One of the better ways to spend Saturday night in, I reckon.

A drop of Irish

The wife and I took the day off on Friday and headed down the coast to Bray, a town we hadn't visited in several years. This is where The Porterhouse began, before the building of their (now dismantled) Temple Bar brewery, and it still retains a more traditional vibe, with Guinness and Heineken on tap. The annual Belgian beer festival is on across the chain at the moment, and in addition to some lovely draught Belgian ales (Abt 12, Tripel Karmaliet, et al) they've brewed up a new batch of their wonderful Chocolate Truffle Stout normally only seen in the spring. Chocolate, Belgian: geddit? A couple of pints of that in the front yard, overlooking the sea, made for a fine start to the weekend.

Saturday was brew day at home: an uncertain attempt at a dubbel. After the clean-up we headed for the Bull & Castle where the cask of the moment is Carlow Brewing's Curim Gold. I've never really been a fan of this in the bottle: it's a little bit bland and soapy. They'd never casked it before, but did so on request from the Bull & Castle who wanted something light and summery for the handpump, after a succession of stouts. Good thing they did, because it was fantastic. Belgian witbier is the closest approximation, and it has that spicy yeast character on top of refreshing zingy lemon flavours enhanced by some supreme sparkly conditioning -- so good you'd nearly think it was from a keg. Between four of us, we had the barrel drained by closing time.

There was just one deviation to the wheatiness -- a recently-arrived strong red ale from Hilden called Cathedral Quarter. It's the second in their series named after districts of Belfast, and I have to say I wasn't keen on the first one -- Titanic Quarter. However, the pour from this 5.3% ABV beer was promising, offering up summer fruit aromas and more than a hint of a Fuller's-esque toffee effect. The first sip was a major let-down, then. Stale, musty and cardboardy: a shame because there's clearly a good beer under it. As I drank, I found it mellowed a bit and the toffee returned accompanied by milk chocolate and butterscotch. I was getting quite into it by the end, though Níall who was drinking one beside me was less impressed. Can't really recommend this, I'm afraid.

It can be a bit swings-and-roundabouts with Irish beer sometimes, but with a gorgeous chocolate stout and a delectable cask wheatbeer in exchange for a musty red, I reckon I'm still up on the deal.

Cloistered

It was miserable on Saturday. Sheets of horizontal rain to the accompaniment of the occasional ka-thunk-ka-thunk-ka-thunk as bits dislodged from my incomplete roof. In the early afternoon I trekked down to the docklands to see if Ely HQ was selling O'Hara's stout on draught, like its sister house on Custom House Quay. It was, but that was a very damp Beer Nut enjoying his pint and steak sandwich by Grand Canal Dock. Lesson learned. If ever an evening was meant for staying in and exploring strong Belgian ales, it was Saturday.

The warm-up act was St Bernardus Prior 8. At first taste I wasn't astounded by it, and then scolded myself for getting so blasé about what is a really really good beer. Brown of body, it's heavily sedimented, with skirls and eddies of yeast clumps riding the gas bubbles inside. The texture is one of the high points: lightly carbonated, leaving a smooth body and a superb thick and creamy head. The flavour is not especially strong and is redolent of dark fruit: plums, damsons, that sort of thing. The lees contribute just a bit of a sharp kick on the end. Other than the understated flavour, my other criticism is that the mouthfeel is just a little thin for such a strong dark ale, though that could be down to the slightly higher-than-recommended temperature I drank it at. Should have left the bottle out in the rain a bit longer.

I moved on then to the next in the range: Abt 12. The cap came off with a pop, followed by some foam. Then more foam. I waited for it to stop. It didn't. So my horrible soon-to-be-disposed-of carpet got the benefit of a fair bit of the beer. More than it deserves. Despite all those bubbles, the head didn't stay on this for very long. The gassiness keeps going, however, and I found the sharp sparkle got in the way of the flavour. It's dark fruits again, but drier, and not really as noticeable as with the Prior. The bitter, fruity aroma is nice, suggesting that this has the makings of a better beer in it, if only they got the other parts right. I have to say I was disappointed.

There are more St Bernardus beers around on the Irish market at the moment, and I'm aiming to get to them all eventually. With these ones, the Prior 8 is worth a look as a low-budget alternative to the first-string Trappists. But I'd exercise more caution with the Abt 12. Like opening it over the sink and within reach of a glass.