Westmalle Trappist

Last Winter I covered the three Wallon Trappist beers and now it is the turn of our Flemish brothers.

The Cistercian abbey of Westmalle furnishes us with two fantastic beers, the Dubbel and Tripel - the latter being possibly the most famous of all Trappist beers, and arguably the one that started the whole bandwagon off.

The Dubbel is a dark satisfying beer with a nice balanced sweetness and a reasonable alchohol content at ABV 7%. The balance between the bitterness of the hops and the soft fruityness makes this a very comfortable drink, especially in autumn and winter.

The Tripel is a golden coloured, strong (ABV 9,5%) complex beer, perhaps one of the most multifaceted beers of all. It combines many tastes, fruit, bitterness, softness (if that is a taste) and has real staying power in the mouth. A long complex symphony of flavours that is more like a good wine than a beer. The alcohol content gives it a strong sweetness, but this is balanced perfectly by the other flavours in the mix. In my opinion it is best served colder than the recommended temperature on a sunny day sitting opposite a church - heavenly! Truly a word class beer.

Coming soon, more Trappist Beer

After the summer of white wine, the autumn leaves are falling and a man's thoughts turn to beer again. Before the summer I reviewed the three Walloon Trappist beers, next up the two readily available Flemish Trappist beers.

Firstly Achel then Westmalle. Westvleteren is in the pipeline so to speak, but this would appear to require a trip to Amsterdam... it's a convoluted story I will get to later.

Enjoy the last of the evening daylight!

Orval

To the third of the six Trappists - Orval. The name is derived from Gold ('Or') and Valley ('Val') and the Cistercian monastery is located in what is presumably a golden vale in Wallonia.

The beer itself is one of my favourites, very bitter, but also with a good refreshing taste and full of complex flavours. The monks aim to make only one type of beer, and to make it well. The glass is a nice chunky goblet similar to the Chimay chalice but with more sloped sides. The decoration of the stem and the design of the bottle give it a very art deco feel in my opinion.

The symbol of the beer is a fish with a ring it its mouth. The delightful story behind this is that a beautiful princess was passing that way in ancient times, and while crossing a lake, let fall her gold ring from the boat into the depths. She exclaimed that if god returned the ring to her, then she would make a donation to fund a holy place at the lake. And indeed a trout obliged by bringing up the gold ring from the deep in its mouth. And so the monks established themselves and despite Napoleon's efforts, were able to bring this wonderful beer to the world.

Big Mama is Watching You

... and she's watching my bathroom and kitchen...

Chimay

And so to the most widely available Trappist beer, Chimay. Here we see the stout goblet of the Chimay brewery. The pouring of the beer was not totally successful, as you can see the head is short of the rim of the glass.

The style of the glass harks back to medieval times when the monasteries provided food and shelter for the main travelers of the age, pilgrims heading for Scherpenheuvel, Santiago di Compostela, Rome, Jerusalem, Lourdes - well maybe not the latter. But maybe at that time pilgrimages were being made to Little Walsingham in Norfolk, one of my favourite places in Englad, while the routes to the holy land were cut off by the crusades.

The Chimay brewery itself is in the abbey of Scourmont way down south in deep Wallonia.

The beer shown here is the Chimay Rouge, the least alcoholic of the Chimay beers at 7% ABV. The "trois couleurs" of Chimay are easy to remember - Red, White and Blue - 7, 8 and 9% ABV respectively. Red and Blue being dark, malty, tasty beers, and White being their "triple" style, light coloured with citric notes. The Rouge and Bleue are to be served at cellar temperatures, and the Blanche / Triple a bit cooler, around 6 - 8 C. The Bleue can be laid down for a number of years - where it can develop aldehydes to give it a port like character - the bottle of Chimay Blue is vintage labeled for this reason.

Trappistes Rochefort

This Sunday last, I decided to (semi-) complete my collection of Belgian Trappist Beer glasses. Ah Trappist Beer, my current obsession for winter 2007/8. How to explain the appeal? These are beers brewed by monks, with the aid of some lay helpers, for non-profit. The money they make goes to their monastic projects. So freed from the the strictures of shareholder value, they make beer for the pleasure of producing the best quality products.

And the Trappist Beers of Belgium are truly world class. There are six monastic breweries that can carry the Trappist Product symbol. Well it seems there are seven, but we won't count the semi-commercial activities of a certain Dutch brewery. And I am talking Belgian beers - at least while there is still a collective known as Belgium.

So let's name them: Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, Westvleteren.

Firstly, my latest glass in my collection - the Rochefort. Here you can see the glass, perhaps the most elegant and certainly the most feminine glass of all the Trappists. Here we see it filled with Rochefort 8, which has an ABV of 9.2%.

I don't know this beer well, partly because the strength makes it a very occasional tipple. It is a classic dark brown dubbel-style, quite bitter and flinty, but the sweetness of the alcohol really shines through. Not sure how much I like this one. Definitely one for more exploration.

But the glass, mon Dieu, it's so elegant.

Ex-fan des Bières Belges

Well, after almost a year's absence I felt it was time to put something on this blog. Easy words of course.

It occurs to me we are becoming a world of exemplary consumers. To be a consumer is to participate in modern society in some way. But to just be a consumer... Does that satisfy?

Well I feel the answer is no, I don't feel satisfied being an exemplary consumer. So let's go create!

As I am building my collection of Belgian beer glasses, let's have some fun seeing them full of beer!