Sight and smell aren't to be underestimated when concocting a brew, smell most of all. Sniffing beer like a ponce is something I try to do surreptitiously (or at least in private) to try and avoid the comparison with winos but hey, I'm only kidding myself. The other weekend I met a chap at Meantime who proudly announced he was going to become the UK's first beer sommelier. There's no going back.
But lets face it, our noses are there to be trusted. If somebody gives you a glass of what looks like muddy water (which some beers do), you might want to give it a sniff to check it's not going to be riddled with cholera. Thankfully, no pathogens can live in booze so once you smell alcohol you can be assured that you're safe. Whether it'll taste good is another matter.
So there's my excuse, anyway. I'm only thinking of my health.
Kapittel Watou Pater is another beer adorned with a picture of monks. But this time it's a whole gang! It's as if they're in a little club where they play bridge and quaff beer and they've kindly posed for a picture for the local rag. Anyway I shan't rattle on about labels too much. Today it's about odour.
I use the word odour specifically, instead of something pleasant like aroma, because this beer don't smell right. Once again, we've got iron filings and loads of it. I may as well be sniffing the beer through a rusty old pipe. All the 'plums, banana bread and sweet burning wood' (their words, not mine) are locked away in a metal box and may as well not be there. Someone more learned than myself should be able to confirm but I think it's the mineral content of the water out of kilter that causes this. Too much calcium if I'm not mistaken...
So I'd basically written off this beer before drinking it. To be honest the first impressions were so poor that it was going to take a lot to change my mind. Saying that, it looked the part; it had the murky charm of Rochefort 6 which is one of the world's greatest beers from, in my opinion, the best Trappist brewery out there. I like lots of micro flotsam in my drink, it reminds you that it's made from stuff of the earth, hearty and good for you. But looks don't amount to much, there's a certain amount of time before you're going to have to drink it.
The first half of the glass was fairly uninspiring but not unpleasant to say the least, but the further I got the better it became. I'm fairly convinced it's because the temperature starts to rise. The warmer it becomes the more you can taste (hence Carling is served extra cold). So as I was was finishing the glass there was plenty going on. It reminded me of a warm, spicy, delicate whisky (Highland Park 18yr to be precise). Where the whisky gets its nuance from nearly two decades in wood, the beer relies on malt and a mix of spices and they finally come through, delivering taste like the postman delivers mail: late.
However, it's just a little too late to save the beer in my opinion. There's just too much enjoyment to be savoured in the first moments of a beer that are ruined in this instance. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't slap you across the chops if you returned from the bar with a glass for me, I just might hold my nose.
Kapittel Watou Pater - 6.5
http://www.brouwerijvaneecke.be/en/assortiment/kapittel-pater-1
As an addition I not long ago tried Van Eecke's Hommel Bier - it was fine, if not a bit uninspiring but bizarrely tasted horrific when accompanied by food.
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