Brewery Website: http://www.brasseriedesgeants.com
Type of Beer: Spiced Beer
Alcohol Content: 8.50%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Poured a hazy dark brown amber color that looked a lot like unfiltered apple cider. White two finger head that recedes quickly revealing some fantastic lacing.
Smell: Wow. All sorts of wonderfully sweet scents come through. Dark fruits, plums, raisins and apricots. Molasses, caramel, malts and some yeast. Sweet yet spicy enough to make this an extremely enticing beer.
Initial Taste: Sweet malt bread up front giving way to the nice dark fruit flavors we noted in the smell. The usual suspects you would expect from a dark Belgian ale are present; Belgian sugar, plums, apricots, honey and fig. Tasted a lot like a fig newton with a nice smooth earthy finish. Very little bitterness.
Thoughts: A great winter offering from the Belgian beer lads over at Brasserie Des Geants. This beer is called Christmas of the Giants because it is brewed in the Irchonwelz castle in Irchonwelz Belgium. The Gate stands high to allow the passage of the occasional visiting giant. (pretty cool!) This is a spiced winter ale that delivers on all fronts. Lovers of Belgian style dark ales will no doubt immensely enjoy this beer with it’s Belgian sugar and dark fruits. And fans of Christmas style ales will enjoy the cinnamon and holiday spices. When combined they create a flavor that is not only sweet and pastry-like but tart, dry and earthy enough to give this beer high drinkability. Not to mention even though the alcohol content is fairly high (8.5%) there is almost no trace of alcohol esters in the beer itself. As with most dark Belgian ales there is little no hop bitterness. This is one of the best holiday beers I’ve had this year and very different from the American Winter Ales we are so used to. Highly recommended.
Brewery Website: www.smuttynose.com
Type of Beer: Belgian Abby Double
Alcohol Content: 4.8%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Pours a very deep dark mahogany with a thick, tan, two-finger head that receded quickly leaving good lacing.
Smell: I picked up on breads, dark fruits, some winter spices (cinnamon, allspice, cloves) with a brown sugar and gingerbread cookie finish. Scents were all pretty subtle but combined to make an extremely enticing beer.
Initial Taste: Nice. The initial taste doesn’t disappoint. There is a lot going on here. The smell would lead you to believe this might be a muted beer. Quite the contrary, this is a very flavorful ale. Lots of dark fruits (berries, raisins) followed up by brown sugar and sweet malts. Winter spices are also very apparent; cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and even some ginger. Finishes clean with a soft hoppy bite.
Thoughts: Smuttynose Winter Ale is a full-bodied, amber beer brewed with a special Trappist ale yeast. Making this beer more of a Belgian Abby Double than a winter warmer like you would expect. This is a nice change of pace from the other winter warmers and Christmas ales out there right now. Smuttynose made the right decision to break away from the usual and give us something unique. This beer is balanced very nicely between the sweetness of the malts and brown sugars and the winter spices and soft hops. Just like their fall seasonal (Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale) Smuttynose has done a very good job delivering a seasonal beer that anything but run-of-the-mill. Highly recommend.
Brewery Website: http://www.achouffe.be
Type of Beer: Belgian Strong Dark Ale
Alcohol Content: 10.0%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Beer comes in a 750ml bottle that when held up to the light reveals a myriad of spices, yeast and other goodness suspended in this heavenly nectar. The beer pours a very dark brown that is extremely cloudy and near opaque. The head on this beauty is like nothing I’ve ever seen, 3 finger light brown head that is so thick it leaves peaks like a lemon meringue pie right till the end of the beer.
Smell: Lots of winter spices, nuts, dark fruits with a sweet citrus finish. Spicy and fruity yet the scents are soft enough so they blend together well.
Initial Taste: Wow, all the spices and fruits I found in the smell come through perfectly in the taste. Starts off with sweet citrus and malts then the spices make their way to the palate; dark fruits, berries, nutmeg, cinnamon, thyme and hops. Even though this is a 10% alc beer you can hardly notice the alcohol. This beer is like drinking a really good fruit cake. Very well done.
Thoughts: N’Ice Chouffe is limited release winter beer from the Brasserie d’Achouffe brewery in Belgium. This is the first beer I’ve had the privilege to try from these guys and now I can’t wait to try the rest of their lineup. This is unlike any other Belgian beer I’ve tried. It is a strong, bottle-fermented ale, brewed with thyme and curaçao peel amung a spice rack of other flavors. Because this beer is so flavorful and thick it was difficult to finish the entire 750ml bottle. I highly suggest sharing this with a friend. I reccomend this beer to anyone who enjoys rich, dark, flavorful ales. This has become my favorite winter seasonal beer and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Once and a while you come across a brewery that seems to have beer brewing down to a science. Chimay is one of these companies.
History – The Chimay Brewery (“Bières de Chimay”) is a Belgian brewery founded inside Scourmont Abbey, in the Belgian municipality of Chimay in 1862. The brewery produces three widely distributed ales and a patersbier exclusively for the monks; they are known as Trappist beers because they are made in a Trappist monastery. The brewing plant was updated in 1988, and now produces 120,000 hectolitres annually (over 3 million gallons!).
The Beers: Ok enough with the history lesson, on with the beer! This trio of goodness comes in three outstanding concoctions -
- Chimay Rouge (Red), 7% abv. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Première. It is a dark brown colour and has a sweet, fruity aroma. The malt in this beer has a nutty character that goes well with the hints of pepper from the house yeast.
- Chimay Bleue (Blue), 9% abv darker ale. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Grande Réserve. This copper-brown beer has a creamy head and a slightly bitter taste. Considered to be the “classic” Chimay ale, it exhibits a considerable depth of fruity, peppery character. The taste continues to evolve and develop with a few years of age, and is extremely popular with the Belgian population.
- Chimay Blanche (White…and our favorite), or Chimay Triple, 8% abv golden tripel. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Cinq Cents. This crisp beer bears a light orange colour, and is the most hopped and dryest of the three.
Interesting side note about these beers is they actually are ok to age. Many beers do not age very well but Chimay states that you can age the White and Red for up to 5 years and the Blue for up 15. Now that is a long time to wait for a beer!
While all three of these specially crafted Belgian beers are very good the White (Triple) is simply fantastic. While it follows in the tradition of other Belgian triples this one stands out due to it’s unique hoppy character and easy (sometimes too easy, $$) drinkability. The Bleue (blue) was our second favorite as it’s the classic Belgian Ale with tons of flavor and quality.
Where to find: Luckily over the past few years good beer is getting easier and easier to find. We have found bombers of Chimay at our local supermarket. But we warn you ahead of time…this beer is not cheap.
We hope you get to try this beer and experience what real Belgian beer made by beer loving monks since 1876.
Cheers!
Some information provided by Wikipedia
