Leffe Blonde

Last Friday, I was lucky enough to have a visitor in Brussels to help me enjoy the weekend! Amy, who is often featured on my other blog since she is another American (from Minnesota!) that was in Croatia this year with me, came for a a 4 day break from Zagreb. We had a great weekend planned of sightseeing in both Brussels and Brugge with lots of beer tastings in the works. After an afternoon seeing the sights of central Brussels, the Parliamentarium (which is definitely worth a visit if you come to the city), and our home away from home-H&M, we enjoyed our first beers at my place. The first one on the menu was Leffe Blonde, sampled from a 75cl, corked bottle.

This beer is readily available abroad so it is probably familiar to a lot of you; therefor, I won't say much about it here. It was one of the only big bottles we found to share at the corner store and it is always a crowd favorite. The beer is 6.5% ABV  and is brewed under the company umbrella of Stella Artois (AB-Inbev) so it has a really fancy website. It has a sweet aroma, a golden color, and  pours well from the bottle to the glass. We both enjoyed it and I would recommend it, since it's likely one of the only beers on this blog that most of you can run to the store and purchase. 

Chimay Blue

Last night my friends and I decided to try our luck at some pub trivia at Old Oak Pub in the Schumann district of Brussels. The trivia was lightning fast but the score keeping was painfully slow so we never did learn how we placed since we can't spend all night on a Monday at the bar. However, I did get the opportunity to add a few more beers to my list. The night's starter selection was Chimay Blue, a dark Trappist ale from an the abbey in Chimay. I have to admit, this wasn't my first run around with a Chimay beer. Luckily there is ample opportunity to sample some in Pittsburgh. I tend to frequent the Belgian brew pub in my neighborhood, Sharp Edge, where it is available and often enjoy a Chimay Tripple with a Chaud Chevre Salad or the Moules Frites at Point Brugge. Yum!


That being said, I already knew Chimay Blue is a pleasure, but registering in at 9% ABV and having a smoothness that makes it go down all to easy means you have to be careful with this one. Had I tried to continue with the Blue through the course of our quiz, I would have been in rare form. For those of you less familiar with this one, the color is a bit lighter than the picture would suggest but it's still a deep brown ale so it's not as thick as a stout or a porter. The aroma is light and alludes to the taste that will follow. The flavor is full and complex, as it changes quite a bit from start to finish and throughout the course of the glass. I like this one because there are lots of nuanced flavors in the beer that you will notice if you concentrate (of course the academic says that) and it's rich without being heavy. I like the aftertaste as well because it lets the beer linger for awhile so you can sip it satisfyingly slowly. Carbonation is mild which leaves it with a smooth feel that is the mostly the cause of the danger acknowledge above. Like I said, this one can be trouble. My notes told me I had the start of good buzz on when I was 3/4 of the way through :-)

In sum:
Appearance 5.5
Aroma 24
Flavor 40
Mouthfeel 9
Overall Impression 19
Total 97.5-go out and get yourself one

Maes Pils

Maes Pils, brewed by Alken-Maes, is the first Belgian lager that I've tried. It's on draft at most pubs and is offered at 50cl for a quite cheap price. It's definitely not the beer to start your evening with or to seek out, but if you are on a budget, and need a drink, order one. It's 5.2 % ABV and just a bit more bitter than an American lager. The appearance is a translucent gold without a head on it. I actually sucked some of the beer up my nose trying to detect and aroma-it didn't have one. The mouthfeel is medium carbonation, smooth, like a lager should be but the taste was a burnt malt flavor-burnt not roasted-and really hits in the aftertaste. This is one I would not recommend for any other reason then you need a cheap beer or you plan to drink a lot. Here is the breakdown:

Aroma: 0
Appearance: 4.5
Mouthfeel: 7.5
Taste: 20
Overall: 12
Total: 44-I don't recommend it

Blanche de Brugge

I enjoyed this beer following the Chimay Blue  at the Old Oak so it had big shoes to fill....not really, I understand I'm on this quest to sample as many beers as possible so I'm definitely not looking to one up the brew I just tried, but it was definitely switching gears. The Blanche de Brugge comes from the De Bouden brewery  and is a classic witbier, meaning wheat is added in additional to barley malts during the brewing process which gives the beer a less hoppy, more sour taste. Witbier is the Dutch name for these, in the USA we call them wheat beers, auf Deutsch sie heissen Weissbier oder Heffeweizen. This one was was sampled as a 50cl draft (no fruit) and the beer is 4.8% ABV.  Like most wheat beers, the appearance is cloudy and yellow, but this one is a more of a bright yellow instead of the pale yellow that I'm used to seeing, which means this photo doesn't make it look very attractive.

The aroma was light but typical of a this style of beer with a hint of citrus and the mouthfeel was a bit flat but the smoothness made it easy to drink rather quickly. The flavor is a sour citrus one, about halfway between a lager and a cider, but it's quite mild. The beer itself is refreshing but nothing incredibly special. It's mild and easy to drink. Overall I'll give it a score of 72, it's a decent beer that is easy on the wallet.

Appearance: 2.5
Aroma: 14.5
Mouthfeel: 8
Taste: 34
Overall: 16
Total: 75-not one to rush out to try, but a refreshing drink that you can get on draft at a pretty decent price.

Omer Blonde

So here goes my first attempt at at post after using the score card and taking notes as I'm drinking the beer...and still drinking it. This is 8% ABV blonde from Omer poured from the bottle at my place while I was working on dinner today. Its appearance is nice-it looks tempting, right :-) and it pours with a good amount of head; however this dies rather quickly and the beer really had no aroma except the normal yeast scent of any beer (Lauren concurred with me on this one). This may be entirely due to the glass I have it in which admittedly isn't great for the beer. The feel was highly carbonated, which I like and find refreshing and it certainly has a higher hop content then the other blondes I've tried. This gives it a full flavor but it's not as crisp as I usually prefer. The alcohol comes in the aftertaste which is quite dry. Overall, it's decent, definitely drinkable, and a fine accompaniment to my chicken breast, brown rice, and green bean dinner but it's not on the top of my list.

Here is my breakdown:
Appearance 4.5
Aroma 6
Flavor 30
Mouthfeel 7.5
Overall Impression 15
Total 63

This seems to be a bit on the low side from what other sites have rated the beer but maybe the grocery store by was a little old and flat (hence the lack of head and aroma) or I'm just partial to more refreshing and less hoppy beers. You be the judge!

Let's get organized...

So I started this idea by just taking pictures and then posting them here. I want to develop a better way to describe and rate the beers because, frankly, I think all of them have been quite good I haven't added much commentary . I am a two time graduate of Anheuser Busch beer school thanks to the wonderful years I spent working for the company and its distributors before grad school- I will never give up my love of Budweiser (or Bud light and Bud Select) no matter how good these Belgian brews are-but I'm a little rusty on the ways of the beer connoisseur. Luckily, I've been a subscriber of Draft Magazine for a few years now so I am going to take a hint from them. On their website, the have many resources for the beer lover including a beer guide. This includes a scorecard to rate aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression. From now on, I will try to use this to add a bit more information on each beer. Now I have to get to back to work, as I've worked through an entire morning organizing this new endeavor instead of working on my dissertation data...whoops :-)

Westmalle Trappist Dubbel

After a days work at my apartment on Sunday, I finished the night with this dubbel. It was creamy, malty, and a rich brown color. For my first beer at home, it proved to be a good impulse choice at the grocery store a few days earlier. My apartment here has a limited choice of glassware, so I went with a wine glass...my usual.