Silly Blonde

Today I’m looking at an empty bottle of Double Enghein from the Silly Brewery. Yes, the Silly brewery. I love it already! The name’s taken from the river Sylle but who cares about that. Well known for its Saison (see post two), Silly’s blonde is called Double Enghien.

Ok, I’ll admit it. I think I’m a bit obsessed with labels. The first thing I want to comment on is a beer’s label. Double Enghien’s label is far from silly. In fact it’s very sensible. It’s got gold and red trimming and what I reckon might be a chufty badge (er, sorry, I mean rosette) drawn on it.  If a cricket club brewed its own beer they might stick this sort of label on their bottles. Silly’s range of beers have rather traditional kind of labels varying from traditionally solid to ‘we-made-this-with-Word Art’ (remember that?). Belgians are a sort of sensible lot and it doesn’t surprise me that they spend their time doing useful things like brewing beer instead of designing sticky labels.

Now, I much prefer dark, maltier beers personally but I try to keep drinking as much Blonde beer because lets face it, some days you eat fish or chicken with a creamy sauce, and dark, muddy beer just wouldn’t do, would it!? I find that they generally lack the flavour and bite of darker beers but of course there are many shining examples. Like Double Enghien.

God knows why they called it Double Enghien (dubbel is of course the name for darker beers), although they do brew a Double Enghien Brune, which is virtually tautological in my book (hmph!). Aaaanyway, it’s a great drink! My first sniff said ‘Germoline!’ to me, which was a bit of a surprise. Do you remember that pink antiseptic oitntment/cream? So that popping up in my nostril was a bit of a shock. But shocks are what I love in beer, I don’t want everything to taste the same. After further sippage and sniffery I decided that it was more like pine resin, which is just the sort of interesting scent one might want in their drink, as opposed to pink cream. There were some honey smells going on there too, perhaps a bit heathery too, but it was all jolly good. Bit of sweet, bit of tang, yum!

The aftertaste too had that kind of balance; there was lots of bold bitterness in the back of the mouth, which is often lacking in golden beer. As you smack your lips there’s lots of sweetness in the saliva to balance it out. I think that’s the perfect outcome and what makes beer so great; a fantastic balance of bitter and sweet.

So under its sensible jacket lies a drink with something different to offer. This I would definitely buy again and recommend you try.

Silly Double Enghien - 8.5

http://www.silly-beer.com/p_double_bl_en.htm

Mad Bitch!

This month I’ve bought a load of beers that I’ve never tried or heard of, on my impossible quest to have tried everything going! Last night I opened a bottle of De Dolle Dulle Teve – the name itself is a mouthful. I had no basis for this choice apart from the fact that De Dolle brewery begins with ‘D’ and I was looking at ‘D’ breweries. There you go.

The label is a piece of work, as are all the labels in the De Dolle brewery. It looks like a cross between a child’s drawing and... well, it looks like a child’s drawing... and not in a good way like a few of De Dolle’s other offerings sport on their bottle (see Oerbier). Labels obviously have no relation to the liquid inside but they can be so important. There are people who know loooads about breweries, region and style who will make their choice on a much more informed basis, but for mere mortals, just like a book is so quickly judged by its cover, why should a beer not be judged by its bottle and label? With Dulle Teve, shit as it may be, half of you thinks “well if they wrap the bottle in this turd of a label they must be pretty confident in what sits inside.” Well, that’s what I thought, anyhow.

The label informs me it’s a tripel and the 10% strength tells me it’s a real strong one. Dulle Teve means mad bitch so I see where they’re going there. I’m happy I didn’t know that before buying it because I think I’d have probably avoided it for that reason. Rubbish name AND label are perhaps a step too far.

I’m pleased I did get my hands on it though because it definitely holds its own. Just like English bitter ale can sometimes taste a bit samey (although that’s no bad thing – just not exciting), blondes, dubbels and tripels can occasionally fail to have character to lift them from the surrounding pack. It looks fairly standard, with a deep gold colour and a nice lasting head and it smells great. My first impression was that it belied its super strength and there wasn’t that kick you get at the back of your nose with 7/8%+ beers. The main initial aroma is tropical fruit and that’s the kind of whiff that I like. In the mouth, once again there’s a familiar frothy fizz that most Belgian ales give and the strength begins to show. It comes through the nose after you’ve swallowed as opposed to on the sniff. After you’ve swallowed comes the interesting part. A very unfamiliar but distinct smokiness appears in the mouth. It was very unexpected because you usually only expect that from stouts, porters and the like, or for the very adventurous – Rauchbier (very freaky smoky fare from Germany to be tried at least once!). In a golden ale like Dulle Teve, however, it’s not to be expected, but I commend De Dolle brewery for giving me exciting surprises in an otherwise standard tripel ale.

Would I get it again? Yes. Not necessarily straightaway but it’s one to remember.

De Dolle Dulle Teve - 8

http://www.dedollebrouwers.be/en/dulleteve.htm#

A saison d'être

For me, the Saison beer is the black sheep among the Belgian herd, but for that reason I seem to want to come back to it. I've such a high regard for all brews Belgisch that I seem to think that perhaps it's just me who's missing its charm.


Traditionally brewed in the winter, it's a crisp summer refresher (so I've already picked the wrong time to drink it) that was supposedly served to summer workers in the fields. Perhaps surrounded by the heady barley fields from whence it came gives it a certain something that my dining room doesn't quite offer. Having the provenance of your beverage in your very eyes, nose and throat has got to help. If you've never drank beer in the brewery where it's currently being made you must. I'm not really one for romanticising about these things but the best glass of Brugse Zot blonde I've ever tasted was in De Halve Maan brewery.


So in my current crate of beer for this month I popped in a couple of bottles of Saison Dupont, a very well-known example of said beer  type. Although the last time I drank one was probably well over a year ago, I think my reaction was pretty much the same. I enjoyed it, it was a fine beer but I didn't jump for joy.


It's got a soft nose with a yeasty smell and mild honey undertones. There's a mildly bitter and quite a grassy taste (I guess there's that barley!) It's not overly fizzy, more creamy and with a dry and short finish. Of all drinks from our Franco-Flemish cousins it's probably one that I can relate most to British beer. The Kernel Brewery (definitely worth checking out) produce a variety of different hopped IPAs that have a similar yeasty, rough and readiness about them. They're not necessarily my favourite type of beer, but as I write I'm starting to think: if I'd just toiled for a full morning of manual work in the sun, a bottle of this would go down pretty nicely!

Saison Dupont - 7

http://www.brasserie-dupont.com/dupont/Default.aspx?Page=saison

Where to start?

Chances are you’re not entirely new to this: I can’t imagine too many of you sat there still surrounded by ‘Happy 18^th Birthday’ cards ready for your first sweet sip of beer (ahaha, as if!!) but every journey needs a beginning.

My love affair first started in the docks of Bristol at a bar with far too high prices for first-year students. It doesn’t exist there anymore but the Belgo mussel bar/beer heaven will be probably familiar to those lucky enough to live in cities to house one (or even two!).

Therefore I’d say Belgium is a great place to start. Its history of brewing matches, (or dare I even say exceeds?) Britain: they’ve been brewing speciality beers since the Middle Ages. The problem with Belgian beer is that once you’ve decided to focus on this one modest country, you find out you’re at square one again. Getting into Belgian beer is like getting into Scotch whisky; where the hell do you start? Fortunately, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and even more ways to brew a beer. Like Scotland and its whisky, Belgium is brimming with hundreds of amazing brews. It’d be harder to find bad beer than the other way round.

There are many different varieties, some more accessible than others, but as this is starting point we’ll try and have some sort of order. Quite a few breweries, mainly ‘Abbey beers’ and the Trappist (more on these later) will have a 3-tiered approach with Blonde, Dubbel/Brown and Tripel.

The Blonde you could say is their entry level; golden in colour, looking a bit like a lager but after a sniff and a sip you’ll realise not so. They’re very fragrant and heady and the alcohol content (usually 6-7%) is already showing its face. A good example, you say? Kasteel Blonde.

Dubbels (or Brunes or Bruins) are identified by, you guessed it, their darker colour and they’re maltier and have a bigger after taste. They’re usually a bit stronger too (7%+) and are one to try for Guinness lovers. Brugse Zot is a nice example.

Tripels (or insert every possible other spelling here) are the bad boys of the gang. Packing 8 – 10% in strength they’re not one to start a pub crawl with. Behind their seemingly gratuitous strength lies serious flavour and smoothness and will usually justify the extra price. Now, I’m a bit rubbish at drinking lots and usually cheat on pub crawls so I can speak sentences after midnight but I can’t recommend these enough. Me and my wife discovered during her pregnancy that usually alcohol = flavour (don’t bother trying alcohol free wine!). Maredsous Tripel has pretty much got everything going for it in this category.

So there you have it. Now you know everything you need to know about Belgian beer. Try a blonde, dubbel and tripel from every brewery and decide on your faves. Finito.

Except of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg…