St Christoffel Christoffel Blond

Bières sans frontières, Great British Beer Festival 2007. For more selections see previous post.
Beer sellers: De Bierkoning

ABV: 6%
Origin: Roermond, Limburg, Netherlands
Website: www.christoffelbier.nl 

St Christoffel Christoffel Blond

Another of the Netherlands’ most outstanding beers, this is the flagship brew of St Christoffel, founded by Leo Brand, scion of the Brand brewing dynasty, in the Dutch traditional brewing heartland of Limburg in 1986. Though the brewery has since undergone several changes of ownership, its consistent achievement of quality is reflected in the fact that it is one of only a couple of Dutch brewers that have any kind of presence in the Belgian market. Although the blond is unfiltered and bottle conditioned, it is in essence a quality Pilsener-style lager brewed to conform to the Reinheitsgebot, though the brewers have opted not to brand it with that much-devalued label. The legend “dubbel gehopt” refers to the fact that fine Žatec hops are added twice to the boil, achieving an EBU of 45.

The beer is a cloudy, peachy golden colour with a thick white head and a restrained sweetish barley sugar, herb and orange aroma. A lively, tangy light malt palate has chewy almond notes and quite stern, herby and faintly metallic hop softened by a honeyed, yeasty quality. A long and complex finish yields herbal hop resins over sweetish and faintly peachy malt.

More Bières sans frontières selections in the next post.
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/christoffel-bier–blond/4567/