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ABV: 8%
 Duvel-Moortgat Maredsous Brune
This beer was previously known as Maredsous 8°.
A full review of this beer is featured in the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, published May 2010 by Cassell Illustrated. Buy the book from amazon.co.uk Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/maredsous-8/2526/ ABV: 7%  La Rulles Blonde  1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die A full review of this beer is featured in the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, published May 2010 by Cassell Illustrated. Buy the book from amazon.co.uk Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/la-rulles-blonde/10375/ ABV: 6.3%  Du Bocq Gauloise Blonde 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die A full review of this beer is featured in the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, published May 2010 by Cassell Illustrated. Buy the book from amazon.co.uk Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/la-gauloise-blonde/6154/ ABV: 7.5%  Rabourdin Bière de Brie Ambrée 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die Beer sellers: Cave à bulles. Rarely can beer claim a goût de terroir of the sort boasted of in the upper echelons of the wine industry, where grapes are grown, juiced and fermented and the results bottled all on the same estate. Although some brewers make a virtue of using local ingredients, very few offer finished products with such a direct connection to their local soil as Hugues and Geneviève Rabourdin. Their Gaillon farm is at Courpalay in the Seine-et-Marne department of the Île-de-France region, about an hour east of Paris, in the heart of the old province of Brie. The area is famous, of course, for its soft rinded cheese, but it’s also known as Paris’s grain silo: farm brewing was once common, but proved less tenacious here in the 20th century than in more northerly parts of France. Cereals had been the Rabourdins’ business for over twenty years before they saw the opportunity to restore a local craft and create a product with a unique provenance by, in their words, “adding the rhythms of brewing naturally to the rhythms of sowing and reaping”. The beers can be sampled in the farm’s stables. The Ambrée, one of Hugues’ first recipes when the brewery launched in 2001, is made from the farm’s own malted barley, with only hops and no spicing. Brewing takes place in one of the barns, with an 8-10 day warm fermentation at 24°C using Belgian ale yeast, several weeks of lagering in tanks at 0°C then at least four weeks of secondary fermentation in no-nonsense 750ml Bordeaux-style bottles. The result is a reddish-amber beer with some white head and a smoky aroma with notes of burnt rubber, cheese, barley sugar and herb liqueur. An intense smoky, roasty, biscuity palate has sweetish malt with an orange tang and more of that slight burnt rubber flavour. The sweetish grainy finish is mild on hops but with a chewy dry roast bite. Overall this is a big, honest and rustic delight that rewards careful sipping. It’s enjoyed considerable acclaim in a country that values regional food and drink highly, twice winning gold medals at the Concours Général Agricole in Paris. And the perfect accompaniment? Surely a decent, mature Brie de Melun. For more reviews like this see the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, published May 2010 by Cassell Illustrated. Buy the book from amazon.co.uk Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/gaillon-biere-de-brie-ambree/39523/ ABV: 7%  Nuovo Birrificio Italiano Amber Shock 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die A full review of this beer is featured in the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, published May 2010 by Cassell Illustrated. Buy the book from amazon.co.uk Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/birrificio-italiano-amber-shock/11486/ ABV: 5.5%  Van Steenberge Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Ale 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die Formerly known as Bios Vlaamse Bourgogne. A full review of this beer is featured in the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, published May 2010 by Cassell Illustrated. Buy the book from amazon.co.uk Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/bios-vlaamse-bourgogne/11810/ ABV: 8%  Achel 8 Blond 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die A full review of this beer is featured in the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, published May 2010 by Cassell Illustrated. Buy the book from amazon.co.uk Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/achel-8-blond/10050/ ABV: 7.5%  Du Bocq Corsendonk Agnus Tripel 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die Also known as Corsendonk Abbey Pale Ale. A full review of this beer is featured in the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die, published May 2010 by Cassell Illustrated. Buy the book from amazon.co.uk Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/corsendonk-agnus-abbey-pale-ale/995/ A shortened version of this piece appears in the book 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die (May 2010). ABV: 10.5%
 Van Steenberge Gulden Draak So the story goes, in 1111, during the First Crusade, the Norwegian king Sigrid Magnusson gave the Emperor of Constantinople a sculpture of a golden dragon to display on top of the ancient cathedral of Hagia Sophia. Almost a hundred years later, during the Fourth Crusade, Baldwin IX, count of Flanders, was crowned in that same cathedral as the first Holy Roman Emperor. Taking a liking to the statue, he followed the grand tradition of conquering art collectors by snaffling it back home to Flanders. For a while the dragon was in Bruges, but neighbouring Ghent, then the Flemish capital, claimed it, sparking a minor war between the two rival cities. Ghent emerged victorious, and for centuries the golden dragon presided from the top of the landmark Belfry in the city center. So the story goes. In fact it’s more likely that, despite its allegedly Viking style, the statue was made in Ghent in 1377 as the Belfry was completed. A bill for the copper used to make it has survived, and the current piece on the tower is in any case a reproduction dating from 1980.
The statue’s beery namesake, from the family-owned Van Steenberge brewery in nearby Ertvelde. is also more recent, but there’s no doubting its authenticity. Although historically a brown ale brewer, Van Steenberge now majors on strong specialities and focused on Gulden Draak (dialect for “golden dragon”) as well as its Duvel-a-like, Piraat, when it entered the export market in the mid-1990s, being well rewarded in 1998 when the American Culinary Institute named it best beer in the world. This dark, strong, spicy ale conditioned in distinctive white bottles is hard to classify – the brewery suggests it’s a barley wine, while some writers have described it as that seeming contradiction, a dark triple. And while “best beer in the world” could be a slight exaggeration, it might almost be worth starting a war over. Tasting notes Dark ruby with a big foamy pinkish head and a sharpish but malty gooseberry-tinged aroma, this beer has a rich tart fruity prune palate, a fluffy herbal swallow and gooseberry and custard on a herbal finish, tasting perilously less than its true strength. Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/gulden-draak/3958/ A shorter version of this review was first published in BEER February 2010 as part of a piece about beers to taste with chocolate. For more beers tasted with chocolate, see previous post. ABV: 5%  Hoggleys Solstice Stout More intense still [compared to the Elmtree mild reviewed in the previous post] is Hoggleys Solstice Stout, from a Northamptonshire micro that’s emerging as one of the real stars of British Real Ale in a Bottle – see my review elsewhere of their top class mild. A once seasonal treat, thus the name, the stout is now brewed year-round thanks to its well-deserved popularity. This excellent black beer with a light bubbly orange-beige head has fruit cake, cherries, raisins and spicy liquorice on the aroma, and a soft raisiny palate with creamy Schwarzbier-like dark malt, balanced with roast and tangy hop notes that emerge in the mouth. A long and drying roasty finish is lightly astringent with a masterful blend of roast and hops. As with Nightlight, chocolate lightens the flavour profile, lending an almost honeyed note. Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/hoggleys-solstice-stout/39468/ For more beers tasted with chocolate, see Red Squirrel American IPA. |
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