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.