Retraining the Palate

It's been a while, but now you may again have the pleasure of reading what comes out of my head. My duties for Salient have finished for the year, so now all the overflow of beer opinions will go here.
Working at a place as amazing as Hashigo Zake has its numerous benefits for a beer geek like myself, but perhaps the one bad thing is that I'm being drowned in a pool of super hoppy american pale ales. Well, its not that bad... but I fear my palate is getting too used to 80IBU+. I need to rekindle my love for the big sweeties: Belgians.
NZ beer importers Beerforce has recently imported my second favourite Tripel in the world: Tripel Karmeliet. This beast is amongst the best Tripels in the world, revered by beer critics world over (I assume). It is the second highest rated Tripel in the world according to THE beer website: Ratebeer.com.
I picked this bottle up at Regional Wines & Spirits.

Shit! My camera took an awesome photo for once!

This is an equal opportunities beer. Like many Belgian "abbey" beers it has a link to crazy religious people who lock themselves up and brew amazing beer. But instead of male Benedictine Monks this one is apparently the work of female Karmeliet Nuns. It's not actually brewed by the nuns these days. It is now brewed by Brouwerij Bosteels, the guys who make Pauwel Kwak. However they manage to achieve the quality of monk beer, so I'll assume the nuns would be cool with them doing it.

Just the aroma of this outstanding beer sends shivers up my spine. Seriously, I got shivers. I also slapped the desk and moaned a bit(beergasm).
I get a huge complex aroma of coriander, cloves and orange peel. It's like putting your nose in a spice rack. The flavour is like chewing on the same spice rack, but with a candy sweetness typical of high gravity Belgians. The 8.4%ABV is incredibly well hidden, with a nice clovey finish rounding everything off.
The thing that keeps this from being my #1 Tripel is that it doesn't hammer the flavours home. My #1 Tripel: Westmalle Tripel achieves this with higher alcohol and just more general awesomeness.
SPEAKING OF WHICH. I've got the inside word from Kieran at Regionals that Beerforce have more Westmalle Tripel on the water coming to us right now! I smell a taste-off.

I picked up another interesting Belgian recently from Rumbles Wine Merchant: Grimbergen Dubbel. This is an abbey beer, meaning it is brewed with the permission and supervision of Benedictine monks, not by the monks themselves. In this case the brewery is Alken-Maes and the monks are from Abdij van Grimbergen.

Two good photos in one night! I must be doing something differently.


This one pours the traditional deep dark reddish brown of a dubbel. A very authentic aroma of banana, raisin and spice with an underlying sweetness. The beer is quite dry in the mouth, the 6.5% alcohol makes itself known. Classic dubbel flavours though, sweet and dark flavours mingle making a fruitcakey mouthful.

I'd say this has been quite the shock for my hop caked tongue tonight. Good thing as I'll need my palate in prime condition for all the crazy homebrew I'm going to be making from next month! More to come about that soon...

Op uw gezondheid!

After work Belgians

I had an exam today, then work straight after. Time for a beer!
Belgians make my favorite beers in the world. Their styles are gutsy, unique and can get pretty out there. So I popped in to Metro New World after work and picked up a Delirium Tremens (8.5%), and a Leffe Brune(6.5%).
This is also an excuse to use my Belgian beer glasses...
I have a thing with glasses, I've gathered a pretty good collection over the last year thanks to regionals. Whenever I buy a new branded glass, I must drink the beer it is intended for from it before any other brew touches it. My Delirium Tremens is a virgin, so I'll pop her cherry tonight.

But first is Leffe Brune, which I haven't had in a while. Lets see what my palate makes of it now.

Blurry photo courtesy of my shit camera

As you can see, this one pours quite dark. But when held to the light it is a beautiful deep ruby colour.
A sweet aroma, with a lot of Belgian yeast character. Some herb is there, and a nice caramel underlying. Not too complex a nose, but very nice.
This ones got a classic Belgian character to it, bit of clove, coriander, sweetness. It's actually a bit too sweet for my tastes. Caramel chases the other flavours and brings the candy sweetness. It is saved somewhat by a quite strong bitterness near the finish.
Now that it's warmed a bit (probably at 8-10°c) the roast malt is poking through a bit, and balancing out the sweet. Much better.

Now for the beer which wins the BEST BOTTLE IN THE WORLD EVAR award: Delirium Tremens.


Why pink elephants?? Marching alligators? Pink dragons sitting on yellow balls? I don't know! All I know is that all this madness contains one of my favourite beers in the world.
It pours an orangey golden colour, with a big smooth head. This is indicative of the bottle fermentation, which also produces a bit of sediment in the glass. Sediment is okay in a Tremens in my experience, and can improve some aspects of the beer.
Aromas are strong, and plentiful. Coriander is quite strong, clove is there, candy sugar, orange peel and maybe even some apple?
Flavour is massive, I always forget how amazing this beer is. There is a quite strong spice note, which I have not found in any other beer. There is a significant fruitiness, starting with mandarin peel, then to apple as it mingles with other flavours. It is quite warming in the mouth, with a very full texture. A hint of the 8.5% ABV is there, and the finish is warm and spicy with a slight astringency.
This beer is so complex that everyone will have a different interpretation of it, but this is mine. At least it is tonight.