The Real McCoy (sort of)

So yesterday, I made fun of the short stubby bottles of Coedo Brewery and compared them to those of Chimay. Duh. I'm not thinking of the Chimay bottle, I'm thinking of the bottle. I'm stupid.

However, the traditionally bottled-up Duvel is now available in the US on draft. It's referred to either as "Duvel Single" or "Duvel Green," and it comes with an obnoxiously snooty website to boot. Of course I had to try it.

The elusive Duvel Green.

Duvel Green has a lower alcohol content than the classic Duvel, but it has many of the same spicy notes. It was inexpertly poured, sadly, with far too little head and much too much beer. That's right: I'm complaining that I got TOO MUCH BEER. The thing about Duvel (and many of the other high-octane Belgians) is that the high alcohol content obliterates some of the nuances in flavor, making much of their appeal is in their much more volatile aromas. A thick head in a tulip glass will help to trap those volatile compounds for your nose to vacuum up. No head and no headroom? Not a lot of aroma. Sad.

Duvel Green can get away with it though, because it's a much lower strength (6.8% abv instead of 8.5% abv) than the classic. Think it comes with a corresponding 20% reduction in price? THINK AGAIN. Of course, being at a gorgeous bar in SoHo didn't help price mitigation.

I picked up a lot of lemon peel and grass, with an undertone of fresh bread. It cut through my brunch of Croque Monsieur and fries, with Duvel's trademark spice pairing especially nicely with the creamy gruyere. No, it's not the classic Duvel, but it's a hell of a lot closer to the mark than Coedo.

Farewell Beers

Recently a good friend of mine made the decision to go to leave San Francisco and attend law school in Minnesota. Being the good geeks that we are, he and I decided to play a last round of Settlers of Catan (German Game of the Year, 1996, check it out!), drink, and reminisce before he began the long drive to the frozen North. I picked up a couple beers to enjoy, the Anderson Valley Brewing Company’s “Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema” and “Piraat Ale,” a Belgian produced by Van Steenberge Brewery.



We first drank the Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema, 5.6% ABV. The beer is apparently called the Cerveza Crema because it “has become a favorite among many of our Hispanic friends, so it is named in their honor.” I am also a huge fan of the Cerveza Crema. It may have been the 80-something degree heat but this beer was damn refreshing. The taste is creamy and smooth, with notes of wheat, vanilla, and a mild alcohol bite. Clocking in at a whopping 4 IBU, you may be unsurprised to hear that there was no hop taste to speak of. My sister described it as reminding her of an Almond Joy. I’m not sure that’s really correct, but it gives a nice reference point for the creamy and sweet taste of the beer. Lest you be worrying, “I don’t like sweet beer,” I can assure you that unlike other sweet beers I’ve tasted, this was not in any way cloying. Bravo to Anderson Valley Brewing Company, I’ll be checking out your other options soon. As for the rest of you, get to their “beerfinder” and go get Crema.

Second, we popped open a bottle of the Piraat Ale, 10.5% ABV. The label declared it to be one of the “top 5 Belgian beers” or some other nonsense. It certainly has a pretty label, which I was unable to photograph properly, as you can see below:



The label states that the beer is a “Belgian IPA,” but it’s definitely not an IPA. Although it has a kick of alcohol (10.5% abv) it has none of the strong hoppy flavors associated with an IPA. Maybe this was just an error in printing, because the beer is a fine regular Belgian pale ale. The Piraat pours with a nice foam, but as you can tell from the picture that foam fades away fairly quickly. I found the beer to be quite sweet, with only a mild bit of alcohol heat and hops at the end. The beer had that Belgian malt and yeast taste that is typical of Belgian pale ale, as well as a bit of spicyness. I’m not sure I’d call it one of the top 5 Belgian beers that I’ve tasted, but it was a solid Belgian pale ale.

Beer & Pi

Greetings folks, this is your Left Coast correspondent reporting.

Last weekend my boyfriend and I headed to Pi Bar. We had heard that Pi had good pizza and a neat beer selection and we were not disappointed on either account. Here's what was on tap that night:

The atmosphere at Pi was very nice, and the service was very attentive. We very much enjoyed our pizza with house-made sausage and balsamic onions. This, combined with the excellent beer list makes Pi Bar into a beer bar that we will be returning to again. Rather than having something from the tap, we decided to sample a couple selections from their bottled selections.

First up was the Gageleer, a “Sweet Gale Beer” (7.5% ABV). Sweet Gale, also known as Bog Myrtle, was used with other plants in a mixture called gruit to flavor beer from the Middle Ages to the 16th Century, before hops became widely available. Or so Wikipedia tells me.

Gageleer is produced in Belgium, and because the website is only available in Dutch at this time I don’t have much else to say about it. Using Google translator with limited success I discovered that the beer is organic, brewed with barley and gale, and is unpasteurized.

Apologies for the poor qualities of the pictures, I was using my phone that evening.

The Gageleer, which undergoes a second fermentation in the bottle, poured with a nice foam head. It has a pungent floral nose and a pleasant straw color. The Gageleer was unlike any beer I have ever tasted. It was hoppy but also quite sweet, with the flavors of honeysuckle, candied orange, and anise. The alcohol flavor is well hidden. The floral nose becomes a bit overpowering seven or so sips in. My boyfriend described it as tasting of grape Kool-Aid. Trust me, once you hear that you will taste it too. I found that the anise/spice flavor faded and it did end up with a Kool-Aid taste. This is undoubtedly due to (1) the sweetness of the beer and (2) the power of suggestion.

My verdict for the Gageleer is mixed. This is definitely a beer that you would have to linger over or share. I could not have finished it on my own. It was definitely unique and also nice to broaden my palate, but I would not order the Gageleer again. 7/10.

For my second selection I ordered the Maredsous Brune (8% ABV). Maredsous is actually no longer brewed at the Maredsous Abbey, but the Abbey licenses its name to Duval, who brews on their behalf. So, while crafted in the “tradition” of the Benedictine monks, it is mass-produced. Duval maintains that they follow the original recipe of Father Atout. Regardless of who makes it, the Maredsous Brune is a thoroughly pleasant beer:

As you can see, the beer pours extremely well and developed a nice foaming head. It has a mildly sweet nose and a good dark color. In drinking the Brune I found it had a pronounced yeasty flavor, with a slight hoppy taste and sweet currant undertones. In swallowing, the beer develops what I found to be a very pleasant mild alcohol finish. I would drink again. 8.5/10.

We also enjoyed a pint of Death & Taxes, a porter so good that it will have its own entry sometime soon.

Have you tried any of these beers? Let me know what you thought in the comments.