I’m getting into the Christmas spirit … and celebrating with the monks again!  Yes, tonight’s beer was another Trappist — but this one was a Rochefort (Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint Remay) … the first one of the Rocheforts I’ve had here in Germany.

This was quite the crunchy brunette — a lot of sediment, but a nice flavor in this brown beer.  This is the Rochefort #6 … 7.5% abv, so you won’t throw back a lot of these and remember what you had.  This was an excellent beer — I have to say I’m glad I have another 5 of them to drink … I’ll work my way up the numbers next (8 and 10)…then maybe another Westvleteren 12 to keep the count going!

Beer Mentor

This has been the month of monasteries and “klosters” for me…  I visited another monastery on Sunday (Bebenhausen) — no brewery, just a monastery.  This one is related to another monastery I visited in November: Maulbronn.  If you include the six Trappist Monasteries in Belgium I’m now up to 8 visited!  I plan on visiting Andechs (from a previous post … yes, they do have a brewery) and the one who made my beer for tonight: Reutberg Kloster.

I didn’t have my camera when I was drinking this one earlier, so you’ll just have to trust me.  I had the “Kloster Hell” — and no, Hell, in this since doesn’t mean that really hot place — Hell in German means “light.”  This is a light Pilsner (to the Germans, light in this sense means lower in Alcohol … so this one is 4.8%).

I have to say that it was a typical German Pilsner — very good!  The balance was excellent in terms of the hops to malt mix.  Worth a visit I think.

Beer Mentor

I had another “brunette” tonight — these Westvleteren beers are really good.  I cracked open the Westvleteren 8 … a brown beer — and was surprised with some wild yeast!  When I poured it into the glass — it was a cloudy brown with a good head.  I took a good whiff and really enjoyed it — it smelled similar to the Orval (in my opinion).  Once I tasted it, I was definitely impressed.  I’m sincerely enjoying these Westvleterens … but as I said before, I have to continue to sample them to know that I really like them!

Beer Mentor

Rainy, snowy, cold day today — I took a little time to catch up on e-mails and blogging today because of the slightly disagreeable weather.  However, it didn’t stop me from sampling a nice brunette — or should I say a Brown Beer — this one (obviously) was another Trappist Brew — a Konigshoeven Dubbel.

A lovely beer with nice aroma and flavor … recommend? Yes!

Beer Mentor

I had the pleasure of visiting a hop farm near Poperinge, Belgium.  This area is the heart of the hop growing region of Belgium.  There’s actually a hop museum in this city and a nice bed and breakfast called Hop Inn.  When driving up here to pick up my Sint Sixtus Abbey beer (the Westvleteren 12), I saw hop yards all over.   Eurohop buys hops from many of these farms and converts the hop flowers into pellets.  Click on this link to see some pictures I took on my visit.  The owner, Mr. Eric Lagache, was extremely friendly and let me have the run of his hop yard.  And the Smell!!! Wow! As soon as I parked the car and opened the door I was in hop heaven.  What a thrill to see this operation.

If you’d like to see his hop operation, feel free to email him: eurohop.poperinge@belgacom.net.
Beer Mentor

Another trip downtown, another new brew!  Tonight’s beer was a German Kloster brew (see, I can alternate Belgian Monk’s beers with German Monk’s beers).   This is a nice Hell (light) beer from the Andechs Monastery in Bavaria.  Here’s how they describe this beer on their web page: “Clean malt flavor, gently hopped and fresh. Only 4,8 % Alcohol at 11,5 % Stammwürze, it’s a pleasant beer pleasure, a classical Bavarian country beer.”

Stammwurze is equivalent to the Original Gravity and directly relates to the Plato value.  For this beer, 11.5% means that the original gravity was about 1.048.  At 4.8%, the final gravity probably wasn’t too low, so this beer is not extremely dry.   I have to agree with their own assessment: this is an easy drinking beer that doesn’t knock you over the head!  A nice one …

Beer Mentor

Oh yes, another blonde!  Tonight I was at dinner and realized there were no new beers I hadn’t tried on the restaurant’s menu … so I had to dip into my Trappist stash here in the room.  Tonight’s choice?  An Achel Blonde … what is it with me and blondes lately?  Oh well, I think I will have even more fun when I sample all the Trappist Brunettes … I mean Browns.  I have one more blonde to go (I think) … and then on to the Browns.

This Achel blonde is 8% ABV … a high octane beer with quite a nice balance of hops and malt.  It is a good one … really!

This evening a friend and I took the train downtown (Stuttgart) and decided to visit the Whiskey Bar I mentioned in a previous post.  Although we were somewhat focused on tasting whiskeys (Springbank 15 year old, Old Malt Cask Laphroaig 16 year old, Edradour 1996 / 13 Year old / Natural Cask, see the trend?) I knew I had to have my 1 beer to keep up my streak!

So, I went with a local (Black Forest) beer – “Tannenzaepfle.”  This means (in Schwabisch slang) “Pine Cone.”  It is from the Rothaus brewery in the Black Forest.  I bet you could guess what this one was … but I won’t leave you hanging — yes, it was a Pilsner.  But it was quite refreshing, and since it was sandwiched in between some very nice whiskeys, it was the right choice for the evening.

Beer Mentor

Yes, I am continuing my Trappist theme a little while longer.  Today I have pictures of beer from two of the Trappist monasteries.  First are pictures of my “haul” from Westvleteren this weekend.  The Abbey of Sint Sixtus only sells their beer to individual customers.  You must look at their website, find out the times you can call to order your beer.  When you call they will then give you the time and day you can pick up your beer.  When I called to order this batch I had to keep redialing for about 45 minutes.  Once it started ringing I let it ring 24 times!  I kept thinking, maybe I should hang up; but, they finally answered and I scheduled the time and date to pick up my two crates pictured here.

After I picked up my crates I went over to the Cafe/shop “In De Vrede.”  This is the only other (legal) place you can buy Westvleteren beer.  They will sell you a six pack (one per customer) of whichever beer they have available.  This trip they hand the blond and the Westvleteren 8 available.  Since I wanted both I opted out for their “gift box.”  It had two 12s, one 8, and one blonde (plus a glass).  As I’ve stated before, they don’t use labels, so you can only identify the beer by the bottle cap…

Finally, my beer for today is a blonde AND another Trappist beer.  This one is from the only Trappist brewery in the Netherlands and the only one I haven’t visited yet–Koningshoeven.  I enjoyed this one immensely — I really do like (so far) all of the Trappist blondes I’ve tried!

Beer Mentor