Hi,
Here's the second episode of the memorable vintage tasting which was held at beer pub Pado in Tielt.
The second vintage is an early 70's Gueuze Belle-Vue, brewed by brewery Belle-Vue that time.
A 37.5 cl. bottle from the good old times....
Brewery Belle-Vue is a Lambic brewery raised byPhilémon Vanden Stock, who started with Lambic blending in 1913.
In 1940 he bought his first brewery, to become brewmaster himself.
It is in 1927 that Philémon Vanden Stock bought café-brasserie "Belle-Vue". A bar dating from 1890 (Paul Jansonlaan at Anderlecht). This bar still exists today.
The name of that café became the family's brand name, and starting from 1949 also became the name of the company.
Sadly, at the end of World War II, the founder of Belle-Vue was transported by the Germans to a concentration camp, from which he ddin't return. Starting from that period, the company was lead by his son Constant Vanden Stock, also well known as the chairman of soccer club RSC Anderlecht. It is under his leadership that the production of sweet Lambic beers was started.
Finally Belle-Vue was taken over in 1991 by InterBrew (later to become ABInBev).
We notice the golden metallic bottleneck wrap, which was frequently seen those days.
The old yellow label betrays the age of the beer. This is definitely an early 70's vintage brewed at Brewery Belle-Vue.
The bottle is closed with a cork, and this means that the sealing isn't that perfect.
Observing the contents, we see that already alot of Gueuze has been evaporated.
No panic, this is quite normal, and frequently seen with very old aged "corked" Gueuze.
This absolutely does not mean that the beer inside has gone bad !
I think it's time we have some tasting....
Let's uncork that beauty.
Removing the golden wrap, the cork shows up.
A bit of wrap oxidation is seen, and the cork still looks in good shape.
Bartender Dominiek has the right skills to uncork. Yes, that bottle is in good hands.
Be aware that the uncorking job wasn't an easy task at all. In fact, the cork broke in two pieces, but Dominiek didn't panic, and could remove all the cork pieces, and this whitout any fragments falling into the precious liquid.
Pouring was done in a professional, appetizing, knowledgeable way.
Again, some pulling was done to produce a head.
Folks, the aromas that escaped that bottle were phenomenal ! Such a fruity, perfumy complexity.
After a short while, the head disappeared into big bubbles hanging on the glass.
Nosing gave the best that the Payottenland has to offer.
Amazing wood flavours, and this combined with vinegar-lactic touches.
This is top-quality Oude Gueuze you would expect.
That nose is after all quite some delight. Especially the perfumy ester fomations during all those years of ageing were quite impressive.
Unfortunately, our nose capacity is impossible to detect sweetness.
Tasting this beer didn't confirm the nose. A sweetish flavour immediatley touched my taste buds.
Sweet .. sweet...... but surprisingly not that artificial. Where's the saccharine ??
The overall result is an about 5.5 vol% sweet-sour concoction with that typical Belle-Vue stamp so hard to describe.
There's something bitter too, and full of tannins.
This whole combination, sweetness, sourness, tartness, fruitiness, bitterness, ageing compexity (including the formation of aromatic esters), and wood flavours makes this vintage tasting quite an extraordinary experience.
Be aware that sweetness is one of the main perceptions here.
If you don't like sweet in Gueuze, avoid at any costs ! Well, I certainly wouldn't.....
This about 33cl. bottle looks very old indeed, and I did my best to preserve the dust.
As you all can see, the bottle has a strange shape. More kinda Porter style. Very unusual for Belgian beer bottle shapes.
Embossed are the text Oudenaarde (see picture), and on the back side (same hight) the name Liefmans.
The crown cap is rusty, and unreadable. Well, if after all, it would have something written on it.
I think it's time for a pour and a taste !
This crazy experience was done at Tielt based beer pub Pado.
Bartender Dominiek was kind to do the professional uncapping and pouring, which he did in a marvelous way.
First, the uncapping ritual. We heard a nice foam escape sound. A good sign really.
Uncapping gave a wonderful flowery aromatic flavour. Quite amazing really.
Gently pouring without inserting the sediment. A bit of pulling was done to still create some foam.
We already notice that this beer is dark colored, and still clear.
This picture was taken just after the pouring.
We see an unstabel head with alot of big bubbles..
After some while, the bubbles disappeared, and we noticed some kind of bubbly foam hanging against the glass wall.
People, what we see here is an Oud Bruin of at least 50 years old !
Don't expect wood flavours here, because there is/was no wood ageing at Liefmans.This opposite to the West-Flanders Oud Bruin type of beers, which OTOH underwent some major Foeder-ageing.
Tasting this beer was quite something memorable.
The first tastes we noticed was a lactic pleasure. Lacticity mainly noticed at the sides of the tongue. This is pure lactic sourness, but in this case from a wonderful mellowness.
No oxidation was noticed, which was an amazing surprise.
This beer was low in alcohol. I presume around 4-5 vol%.
I still don't know exactly what beer we've tasted. Is this the Odnar, or is this the regular Liefmans Oud Bruin from that period.
Anyway, the taste experience gave a most complex Oud Bruin type of beer, without any wood characteristics.
I expected some Port- or Sherry flavours, but surprisingly they were un-existant.
Indeed, we tasted something old and aged, but somehow due to the vast presence of lactic sourness, this old vintage gave something fruity and refreshing all together.
After we consumed all of the beer, Dominiek poured the sediment.
You see, it's kinda chocolate brownish.
Tasting that mud gave more bitterness, and something undigestable.
People, this was what I would call an extraordinary taste experience.
The next article will be about an aged Gueuze Belle-Vue from early 70's....which we opened later that evening.
This place has been mentioned to me by Christophe, owner of that new and so excellent new Ostend based beer bar/restaurant De
Bistronoom - Vindictivelaan 22 - 8400 Ostend. (see also...).
The new beer bar is located at Beauvoorde in the west corner of Belgium. Beauvoorde is one of the small places in Veurne with a beautiful Castle to visit.
The pub is called Café Tuur Djès. The name is derived from a defunct local folcloric giant who indeed was named Tuur Djès.
The giant has been dismantled in the 70's, but there's hope that giant Tuur Djès will be revived soon !!
Anyway, a great name for a great bar. A bar offering a satisfying 65 beers in total.
Tuur Djès - Gouden Hoofdstraat 42 - 8630 Beauvoorde (Veurne) - 0474 53 45 92
Number of beers: 65 http://www.tuurdjes.be/
It's quite amazing that this gorgeous place hasn't been noticed before, because it exists already for more than 3 years!
The most friendly owners Marieke and Willy are running this outstanding bar with knowledge, passion and true dedication.
The 65 beers menu contains some great Belgian quality.
For example this Bolivar brewed at bry. Huyghe.
One of the ingredients is quinoa.
In
Peru, Chile and Bolivia, quinoa is widely cultivated for its
nutritious seeds, and they are referred to as "little rice."
The seeds are used in creating various soups and bread, and also
fermented with millet to make a beer-like beverage. A sweetened
decoction of the fruit is used medicinally, as an application for
sores and bruises. Quinoa has been grown outside of South America
for a relatively short time. It is grown in Canada and has been
grown in the U.S., in Colorado since the 1980's by two entrepreneurs
who learned of the food from a Bolivian. Technically
quinoa is not a true grain, but is the seed of the Chenopodium or
Goosefoot plant.
Tha name Bolivar is derived from the Venezuelan
rebel, Simon Bolivar. Bolivia remained a Spanish colony until 1825, when the Venezuelan
rebel, Simon Bolivar, gave the country its independence (and its
modern name). Hence the name of this beer.
This beer is brewed on command by Oxfam Fairtrade at brewery Huyghe.
Apart from quinoa, two more foreign ingredients were added. Rice from Thailand and cane sugar from Costa Rica.
Interesting to know that the ingredients are products from honest trade (fair trade).
See also http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/trade
Tasting this golden blond - crystal clear - beer indeed gave those remarkable quinoa flavours. 7.5 vol% strong, and a truely excellent and well balanced beer beauty.
By the way, this beer was beer of the month at Tuur Djès.
Here's a beer you seldom find at beer pubs. Kapittel Pater, the lowest alcoholic beer of the excellent Kapittel range.
This 6 vol% dark candi sugar - caramel malty - sweet liquid has always been one of my favorit Kapittel beers.
I always wonder why this beer is so seldom seen at beer pubs. Tuur Djès has it on the menu, and this is a wonderful surprise.
For a low alcoholic 6 vol% beer, this beer has so much flavours going on.
A great brew from bry. Van Eecke !
We are in the west corner of Belgium, so there's the availability of Ploegsteert beers.
On the right side Ploegsteert or Queu de Charrue blond. A blond tripel beauty with those remarkable thyme flavors, brewed at Van Steenberge for drink central Van Uxeem. This beer reminds me of that other Van Steenberge tripel called Bornem Tripel. Very similar. This also means top-quality!
By the way, the mixed dish that was ordered alongside our beers was a true pleasure ! Burgundian at its upper best.
More top-quality !!!! Papegaei
A hoppy blond beer at 8 vol%, brewed with perle hop flowers (hop bitterness) and hersbrucker hops (aroma hop).
Refermented inside the bottle, unpasteurized, unfiltered ! The way it should be.
A blond hazy beer brewed according the recipe from Adam Verstraete and J. Vandenhove.
Folks, I'm very impressed with this beer. Quite an amazing piece of brewing.
If you observe this beer, you will see a remarkable yellow pale beer with a huge haziness.
Tasting gave a low carbonated beer, which gives a very soft mouth feeling.
Spices like coriander and curaçoa peel are clearly noticed, and makes it a very refreshing beer.
Most of all, the hop flavours and aromas are such a true delight. Amazing how hoppy this beer really is.
Hoppiness as kind of fruity, citric. The combination malts and spices gave an excellent top-quality beer !
Top notch !
Brouwerij Verstraete (Deca services)
Grote Dijk 13
8600 Diksmuide
Tel.: 051/50 51 05
Anyway, café Tuur Djès is a most welcome new beer pub map entry........ well deserved.
I can only recommend......
Tuur
Djès
Gouden Hoofdstraat 42
8630 Beauvoorde (Veurne)
0474 53 45 92
Number of beers: 65 Website
Closed on Mondays
Tuesdays open from 14.00 till 22.00
Fridays and Saturdays open from 11.00 till 23.00
New Edition Poster "Belgium the Beer Country" - Jaak Denooze
Written by Trappist
Tuesday, 05 January 2010
Hi,
Time for some attention towards a really great initiative.
The wonderful initiative in question: The poster "Belgium The Beer Country".
The poster was already introduced way back in 1982 by Toon Denooze, who ran beer pub De Hopduvel that time in Ghent.
Till 1998, 6 editions were published, but after that period there were no successors anymore.
But see, after 12 years, a brand new edition has been launched !
Here's the new poster ! A tremendous job by formerly patron Kaffee De Hopduvel in Ghent Jaak Denooze, brother of Toon, who made the efforts to finally publish a seventh edition, and this after 12 years of silence. Thumbs up for that !
Jaak Denooze in front of his creation.
After
months of extensive research, 135 breweries were contacted to send
their label collection of regular beers, so one-time occasion brews
were withhold. Only those who brew themselves with own brewery installation, and those who brew elsewhere feature the poster.
All breweries were very enthusiastic about this new edition, and the cooperation was tremendous. Soon it was clear that it was impossible to publish all labels. About 900 labels were send, but there was only room for about 550 labels. In dialogue with the brewers, who understood the problem, a selection was made.
Finally 131 breweries are published with a total of 560 beers.
As additional information, Jaak has decided to attach an info sheet with the details of all beers and their breweries. (Something that previously was published at the bottom of the poster, but due to lack of space wasn’t possible anymore )
Already a lot of Belgian beer bars do show the poster. Even the "selling room" at the abbey of Saint-Sixtus has the poster on the wall. Here a picture taken last week at De Dolle Brouwers brew tavern.
The poster is for sale at € 15.00.
A more closer look.
This is a really amazing collection of what Belgium has to offer as original quality.
Folks, a monument in the Belgian beer world is back, and can find its way on a
national and international way towards a new generation of beer lovers.
People, I can tell you already that this is my most extreme beer tasting EVER !!!
What I have tasted last evening is to be called a STUNNING experience.
First, the history of the obtaining of the two old bottles of Trappist Westvleteren Extra 8.
Last Monday afternoon, I picked up two crates of Westvleteren Abt 12 at the abbey.
When putting aside my four empty crates, I was stunned to observe a full crate of old aged Westvleteren 8 alongside the empty crates. Apparently someone has brought back a full crate of old beer with the (wrong) understanding that the beer had become undrinkable.
I asked the young laic, who occupied with loading my car, if I could take home that full crate.
The young guy was hesitating and told me that the beer must have gone bad due to its age.
But suddenly he said that I could quickly grab a couple of bottles. A most kind gesture which I'm still VERY thankful for.
The beer that I grabbed can be considered from an amazing quality ! A miracle happened at Abbey Saint-Sixtus !
What follows is a detailed description of what can be called an extreme beer tasting moment.
All pictures can be clicked for high-resolution.
Specially for this amazing moment, I used my old rare Saint-Sixtus chalice glass.
Like you can see the crown cork is rusted, and clearly shows the word EXTRA.
There's NO alcohol percentage mentioned on the cap, which already betrays that we're dealing with a very old bottle.
I also notice something filthy hanging on the cap. Possibly a dried out spider web. maybe....
The crown cork also mentions Cat. S.
The actual uncapping and pouring was captured with a small movie, so everybody can see how things evolve.
The movie capture was not an easy task, because I have only two hands.
So Katrien, my wife, did the actual uncapping when I filmed the action.
It was a difficult job, because the crown cork was rusty, and in this way the "crown cork bending" during uncapping didn't succeed that well.
You will see that Katrien had some difficulties doing the uncapping job, but she greatly managed.
You can observe that - immediately after uncapping - we hear a nice Shtttt.... "carbonation escape" sound.
That's a good sign. This means that the crown cork has well sealed things with ages. Lucky !
Immediatley after uncapping an amazing aromatic perfumy flavor filled our living room. Fruits, peaches, flowers, banana, etc... amazingly complex.
Time to pour. I had to pull the bottle for foam production.
But see, fractions after the beer was poured, the foam instantly disappeared. Afterwards, the beer istelf didn't contain any CO2, as if the beer expelled the gas in one shot. Amazing !!!
In fact, the sound of the CO2 reminded me of a Champagne pouring.
Here's the result of the pouring.
I left about 2cm of the beer inside the bottle to prevent any sediment was poured along.
More amazement !
This Trappist beer is crystal clear. No haziness. Who would have expected that ?
And now the "moment supreme" ! Tasting!
Tasting gave wood and lactic sourness, similar to the finest Oud Bruin !
This is clear ! This beer has been wood aged in 'foeders' !
The mellow lactic sourness is definitely not an infection. This clearly was meant to taste like that. The wood flavours are a wonderful proof.
In fact the beer is quite similar to the best Rodenbach Vintages! I'm stunned !
Wood ageing has stopped around 1968 at the Saint-Sixtus Abbey. 1968 was the year the monks changed from wood ageing (foeders) towards stainless steel vats, and in the mean time this also meant the end of wood flavors after 1968.
This means that the bottle I tasted last evening is at least 41 years old ! In fact, it could well be much older.
I has always been my ultimate wet dream to actualy be able to taste the lactic woody Westies sometime.
But see, last eveing this actually did happen. No wonder that my excitement is so extreme when I'm writing this article at this moment. I never could've thought this ever would happen.
More flavors: This dark beer is also very sweet (candy sugar), and something undefineable bitter. Is it the tannins from the wooden casks? Possible.
It even smells like old ancient wooden furniture. Antique if you want. Remarkable at least.
Jeez.... still so drinkable. No oxidation, everything still in perfect shape.
I also taste Port wine notes and some subtle Sherry flavors.
The three pictures here above do show the result of the bottom pouring.
This time some hazy fluid was poured.
The bottom of the bottle has a muddy sticky sediment.
Also surprised by its alcohol feeling. Seems such a strong beer really.
The glass is nearly empty, and I already feel the alcohol. Is this really only 8 vol%
Even the finest Bourbon comes in my mind now.
Such a complex aromatic fluid. Words are really insufficient to describe this wonder of nature.......
I'm ....... thrilled
Cheers,
Filip
2010-01-26 06:34:34 SJANSEBUZZE!
2009-12-11 03:10:04 A MIRACLE
2009-12-10 08:03:03 Simply amazing Filip. I wonder how often the abbey gets old ...
Hi,
It's Saint-Nicholas time here in Belgium.
A perfect period to hold a Saint-Nicolas beer fest you would think.
Indeed, but because there's no Belgian Saint-Nicholas beers (correct me if I'm wrong), the Bruges' Autonomous Beer Tasters have organized a X-mas beer fest during the SN festivity.
Why there's no Saint-Nicholas beers here in Belgium ?? Someone ??
The tasting was held last Friday evening at Assebroek near Bruges.
Saint-Nicholas and Black Pete! Many of us were given great presents.
Here we see chairman BAB Marc Vandepitte wearing something special !
People, this is the original Brewery Aigle Belgica (BAB) working outfit that many brewery workers did wear in those good old times, when the brewery was up and running.
This is a remarkable piece of Bruges' beer history. And.....kept so clean like it's brand new really.
Anyway, a lot of Belgian X-mas beers were tasted that evening.
Including this Ecaussinnes X-mas beer, which was filled till the rim. (see picture)
I never seen such a full bottle. Remarkable. Anyway, value for money, that's for sure.
During the tasting, we were offered some delicious "beery" food.
A tasty preparation by Paul. I can tell you that this dish was amazing !
Tender pork cheeks braised in Trappist Westvleteren 12 "Stoofbier".
The meat was so succulent. similar to the smoothest rabbit stews.
As mentioned, the stew was prepared with "stoofbier" (stew beer) from the Saint-Sixtus abbey.
This beer is the bottling of the last remains from the lager vats. So, there is too much yeast inside, which makes those bottlings not suitable for selling as the perfect Westy 12, best beer in the world.
Here we see the cap.
As you can see, this looks like the normal Westy 12, but in this case not quite correct.
Previously, the monks did mark the caps with an "S". This was done with a black pen, and sold in 6-packs for a dirt cheap price.
These days, this is not done anymore. In place a full case/crate can be ordered. The stoofbier is marked on the wooden case.
Anyway, glad to find out that "Stoofbier" is still available at the Saint-Sixtus abbey.
One of the highlights that evening. Vicaris Kerst 2009.
Voted as best X-mas beer that evening.
An amazing job by brewmaster Dirk Naudts from the 'Proef', and this for beer firm Dilewyns.
This beer is brewed according the recipe from brewmaster Vincent Dilewyns.
By the way, Vincent is busy installing his own brewery !! More later....
The outcome is a great 10 vol%, dark, malty sweet beauty. Amazing how balanced this beer really is.
Great brewing!
Time for a surprise pour !!!!
No X-mas beer this time, but in this case an truely fantastic Oude Gueuze.
Who would refuse this kind of pouring by Paul ? Well, I didn't :)
This picture greatly shows how aromatic this Old Gueuze is.
The flowery, perfumy, funky flavours are so intense. A masterpiece by brewmaster Frank Boon.
A one-time collaboration beer between the majority of Lambic breweries/ Gueuze blenders.
Hopefully this initiative gets a successor !
The evening has been captured by the Belgian BeerBoard.
Clicking the image here above will show all the pictures.
Have fun....
A small footage was done too, just to give you all some impression.
Undoubtedly a fun experience...
Many thanks to BAB for - again - setting up such a great beer tasting event.
