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!

Beer Club Surprises

Last night I attended the Malthouse Beer Club for the first time. This is held on the second Wednesday of every month, and costs $25-$30 per head depending on the beers sampled.


Last nights menu was based around beers with big aromas.
First up was Invercargill Boysenbeery, a fruit wheat beer. This 2009 bottle seemed thinner than previous batches, but was still deliciously fruity.
Then onto two classic wheat beers, Hoegaarden and Hofbräu Münchner Weisse.
My glass of Hoegaarden was disappointingly sediment free, which resulted in a watered down flavour. I did get a good orange peel on the nose though. I'm sure you know Hoegaarden is excellent when poured correctly though.
Hofbräu Münchner Weisse was nicer than I remembered, probably the first surprise of the night. This was full of flavour. I got a whole lot of herbs on the nose, mingling with a good sweet banana. Flavour was strong and full, with bananas forming the main flavour and a nice coriander herb in the background.

Then came the 'aromatic' section. First up was Steinlager... Yeah, no.
Then came Bookbinder or 'Bookie' as many were affectionately referring to it. My first experience of Bookie (back in the day) was that it was a very hoppy beer, akin to their pilsener. It seems that Richard has decided to tone down the hops now, and what you now have is a very balanced tasty beer. The perfect session beer at 3.6%.
Finally was the NZ king of aromatic beer, Epic Pale Ale. See my previous blog for the analysis of this, it's still freakin' awesome.

The final beer was the best surprise of the night, as most bottle I've had from this brewery have been flat and sweet. Just not right. But it seems like Peak Brewery have sorted their shit out with Great End ESB (6.5%).
It poured a murky toffee colour with a big fluffy off white head. Toffee is the key word with this beer. Big toffee aromas, laced with a hint of smoke and fruit. The flavour was massive, the higher alcohol provided a big body. Toffee and caramel dominated the flavour, and the sweetness was toned down with a mild bitterness and a hint of smoke. Tasty and complex, many likened this to Renaissance Stonecutter.
Great End ESB easily won the vote for the favourite beer of the night.

I thought the fun was over, but then the proprietor of Malthouse, Colin Mallon wandered over with a couple of bottles of a beer which just arrived that day: Hook Norton Double Stout (4.8%).


What a stout! A massive aroma of chocolate, coffee, vanilla and a hint of booze (surprising for a 4.8% beer, but not a bad thing). Massive milk chocolate flavours followed by coffee and a creamy smoothness. It's not surprising that this won 'best stout in the world'. I'll be having another for sure.
Colin revealed the final surprise of the night while we were all enjoying our stout. While in England recently he organised a pallet of Brew Dog beers to be shipped to NZ exclusively for the Malthouse!


From his descriptions of the order, he will be receiving a lot of Punk IPA(6%), some Paradox Imperial Stout (10%) and Tokyo Imperial Stout (12%). Who knows what else will be in there, but I'm bloody excited for these!!

Malthouse is the best.