Nuetnigenough: An evening of beer, food, and friends

For Amy's last night of her visit to Belgium, we wanted to find a great restaurant and sample a few more beers to complete her experience. The restaurant we choose was Nuetnigenough in the city center, which calls itself, "the Brussels Brasserie for greedy gluttons and fine beer lovers" and it definitely delivered. This choice allowed us to share some large bottles of beer paired with tasty treats and good conversation. It really was a great night and such a wonderful experience to be able to pair these beers with our dinner.

Our first choice was a 75cl bottle of Hop Harvest 2012 from the brewery De Ranke. I believe this was a limited edition beer and it's not listed on the brewery's website as a ongoing selection. These types of beer, closer to an IPA style, are one I don't usually gravitate towards but it was a good choice after out initial order, a Guldenberg 8.5% tripel from the same brewery, came to us apparently a bit skunked. The waiter open the bottle to a large amount of froth and foam and promptly took the bottle back for another one before it even hit the table; however, that skunked bottle was the last one. Its replacement was this pleasant surprise that I really enjoyed.

The Hop Harvest is 6% ABV and poured to a golden, cloudy color in the glass that you can see above. The head lingered on the glass and the flavors were citrus and hops which made think it was a bit like a light IPA. The taste was dry without over-drying your mouth and the alcohol flavor comes through in the aftertaste so here it resembles a stronger IPA. It was very good overall and paired amazingly well with the salted gruyere cheese we had to start the meal.  We followed that up with the shrimp "devil style" which had a nice, spicy kick to it that was calmed by the beer.*

The breakdown:
Appearance 6
Aroma 20
Flavor 36
Mouthfeel 8
Overall impression 18
Total 88 highly recommended

The next beer we chose for our entree course was the Ondineke Oilsjtersen Tripel. This beer is shown in its fantastic paper bag packaging and a small chalice. Like the Hop Harvest, we ordered this in the 75cl bottle. It is 8.5% ABV and comes from the Glazen Toren brewery. This beer accompanied my selection of the steak and mince meat rolls in the "belle fleur" beer sauce. The dish itself was very good-think meatloaf wrapped in a piece of sirloin and drowned in gravy....the meat lover in me says YUM just thinking about it. It was a hard choice between this and a classic steak but I was definitely pleased with my choice. The meal had a very rich, savory flavor so I was lucky that the beer had a strong, rich flavor as well. It came with an strong aroma of yeast and looked very creamy in the glass with a pretty thick head. The color was a cloudy golden brown or honey, almost like a natural apple cider . The taste was sweet and not at all bitter, which complemented my meal well.

Breakdown:
Appearance 10
Aroma 20
Flavor 36
Mouthfeel 8
Overall impression 18
Total 92 highly recommended

So while were definitely had a good amount of food, we couldn't resist ordering some dessert and finishing off the meal with one more glass. We decided to stick with our beer themed dinner and ordered the cherry pie with the Old Kriek beer cream. Kreik is a cherry flavored lambic that is quite popular here in Belguim and I'll write about that one soon since I sampled it at one of the breweries here in Brussels. In this instance, it was just added some flavor to the cream on our pie and I ordered a Dupont Saison to enjoy with it. This beer is a saison style pale ale that is is now a widely available style from several different brewers. This on comes from Dupont and is 6.5% ABV. I had this beer in a 33cl glass and it was one of the few brews the restaurant had on draft. The aroma was a little lacking, I couldn't really get a good whiff of it but the appearance is a little cloudy and honey colored but with a bit of a strange, bright tint to it. The head hung on the glass well and the taste was spicy and bitter. The aftertaste is dry and lingers in your mouth but the sweetness of the pie reduced the bitterness, making this a little bit more enjoyable for me. 

Breakdown:

Appearance 9
Aroma 15
Flavor 30
Mouthfeel 7
Overall impression 16
Total 77 it was ok

*You can check out the menu for Nuetnigenough here.