Memories of Belgium: A Date With Westvleteren 12

Our first two Westy 12s.....ah the memories

***One year ago, our gang was preparing for an epic adventure to Belgium. Still today, we can’t shake the thrills of the trip. We will relive some of our experiences over the next few weeks. We wanted to start with one of the best – our trip to Saint Sixtus Abbey.***

 

 

 

Enjoyed on 3/18/2010

Brewery: Brouwerij Westvleteren/Trappist Abbey of Saint Sixtus

Location: Westvleteren, Belgium

Beer: 12

Web: http://www.sintsixtus.be/

http://www.indevrede.be/

Presentation: 0.33L brown glass bottle, capped

Vintage: 2010

Style: Belgian Quadrupel

Barrel: N/A

ABV: 10.2%

IBU: N/A

Hops: N/A

Malt: N/A

Vessel: Chalice

Recommended Serving Temp: 55 degrees

Notes from the bottle: Part of me just wants to put N/A here for consistency sake, but I’ve, not surprisingly, never put N/A in this section.  The bottles that contain the three beers of Westvleteren have no label what so ever.  The only marking that can be found on the bottles themselves is the word “trappistenbier” emblazoned in the glass about ¾ of the way up the bottle.  The differentiator is in the cap.  The 12 has a yellow cap.

Food Pairings: Deep, meaty dishes with a lot of flavor, smoked things

Cheese Pairings: Brie, Gouda

Beer Advocate: A+

Rate Beer: 100 (4.49)

Timperialstout’s Notes:

I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to write a review of this beer.  It is, without a doubt, one of the hardest beers to come by in the entire world.  But, if you are familiar with Westy 12, you already knew that.  That is without a doubt a reason that 12 is consistently rated the number one beer in the world on nearly every list out there that was created for the purpose of rating individual beers.  The question that has always haunted me most is on the other side of that coin; does it taste like the best beer in the world?

When it was finally solidified that Beer Blotter was going to Belgium, it went without saying amongst us that we would find our way to St. Sixtus at all costs.  We rented a car whilst there, largely for the purpose of this portion of our trip, considering that no reasonably managed public transit system would deliver us to Westvleteren.  Please, Google Map (satellite view) the town.  You will see how remote it is.  Nestled in the heart of West Flanders, it is closer to the French border that any other major city in the country (not that that’s really saying anything, Belgium is very small).

Short aside: If you think about it, by choosing to head to West Flanders for this visit, we were making a huge time and money sacrifice to taste a beer that we only knew of in lore.  A beer that we didn’t even know was good with any definity.  Were it not for a man they called “The Beer Hunter” telling the world that this was the best beer in it, things would be ever so different.  Never the less, we trek on.

The closest town of any population is Poperinge.  Those familiar with that name are probably thinking of hops right now.  Poperinge is the hop center of Belgium, and our travels in this remote corner of the country found many a hop field.  It was truly a beautiful drive.  Thin, barely paved roads snaked through ancient European farm, one after the other.  To find a tranquil monastery out there in the countryside, well, it just seemed right.  One could get some serious meditation in out there.

Thursday, March 18^th was Beer Blotter’s West Flanders day, and we meditated together, albeit indirectly, with Trappist abbey monks, via the enjoyment of the holy product they produce.

Since the abbey itself is not accessible to the public, our consumption would be confined to the café and visitor center – In de Vrede.  This is a very modern looking building adjacent to the monastery…much, much too modern.  We could have easily been in America once we stepped through the doors.  With the exception of the abbey merchandise and a few photos on the walls of the brewing equipment, In de Vrede is a pretty sterile place to have a beer and cheese plate.  I guess it doesn’t really matter though…they serve all three Westy brews out of the bottle for a very reasonable price.  This is the only place in the world that can, or will say that.

We went straight for the 12, without a single care for what it may do to our pallets, as if we just may up and have a heart attack in the next 15 minutes and not be able to taste it before death.  The much-heralded elixir was poured right from the yellow-capped bottle (no kegs exist) into the official Westvleteren chalice.  The time had finally arrived.  Fear stuck me.  What if it was bad?  All my hopes and dreams would be spoiled in one sip.  Ok, maybe I’m being a little too dramatic…

The fluid is a deep mahogany brown, allowing just the slightest bit of light to pass through it, mostly near the edges.  A fluffy, off-white, near tan head arose from the pour and stuck around for a while, eventually diminishing to a wisp and ring where the beer met the glass.

The nose was somewhat challenging to decipher at first.  The beer was chilled unnecessarily, but understandably.  Also, a major malfunction of the chalice as a serving vessel: yes, it looks cool and is no doubt the quintessential Belgian presentation, but it offers no collection of scents.  I definitely stuck my nose into the fluid on several occasions trying to gather in the smells.  Patience and a lot of swirling brought a wonderful, deep malty sweetness and a substantial dose of that near omnipresent yeast fruitiness in Belgian ales.  Dark, rich breads, stone fruit and spices came to mind.

The mouthfeel was undeniably smooth and slick.  Good body for a Belgian, but carbonation was present as well, though subdued.  Intriguing.  A bitter smack to the pallet brought hops temporarily to the mind, but make no mistake, this is a malt bomb!  A distinct burnt brown sugar flavor is most present.  Molasses and chocolate are sensed as well.  The spices are hard to pinpoint amongst the intense sweetness, but they are there.  Complex is for sure.  The carbonation, slick mouthfeel and rich sugars lend a cola like aspect to the beer.

The 10.2% isn’t completely hidden, but is by no means overpowering or boozy.  The aftertaste is very lasting, thankfully.  There is a slight dryness and the carbonation wilts away with time.  Rochefort 10 was the abbey beer to beat for us.  It’s close, but I’d give 12 the upper hand.

Beer Blotter can now answer that looming question…does 12 taste like the best beer in the world?  Well…have we had a better tasting beer in our time?  Yes, BUT…this beer is really, really good.  It’s a hearty, unique, complex quad with a lot of history and a great story.  Have we had a beer more rare?  No.  If you combine the taste and the rarity, do you get the best beer in the world?  Quite possibly.  Was it worth the trip?  A resounding YES!

2 interesting things we learned about Westy along the way, from the Belgians that know it best:

All the hoops that have been set up by the abbey to limit the ability to obtain the beer is really annoying…to everyone, hence the extreme mark-ups found in all the bars and bottle shops that sell it and the large number of bars that now refuse to sell it, either out of frustration or simple inability to get it.

If you ever order a Westy at a bar (other than In de Vrede of course), make sure you ask your bartender or waiter to let you watch them open the bottle in front of you.  As it turns out, it is a growing trend to keep an empty Westy bottle around in the back of the bar.  Then, when one is ordered, the bartender will fill it with St. Bernardus Abt. 12 and serve it as if it were the ordered beer.  This method working more times than not since most have never tasted said Westy, and saving the bar some serious dough along the way.  There are probably worse scams in the world since Abt. 12 is a damn good beer, but a scam none-the-less.

If you like 12, you should try…

St. Bernardus Abt. 12; Trappistes Rocheford 10; and Allagash Four

Disclaimer: This beer was purchased at the only place in the world that it can be procured at a reasonable price, as the monks intended – the abbey itself.  Get jealous.

bartender......another 12 please.

300 Posts: 3 Big Moments in Beer Blotter History

De Zon's organic bathrooms really left an imprint - and a lesson in hilarity.

On Friday, Beer Blotter offered its 300th post! Over less than a year has elapsed since we first went public on BeerBlotter.com. We have a had a blast so far, and we look forward to much more ahead.

In almost 11 months, we have managed to put up more than 300 stories (this article is #302). From our editor’s first beer review of Lazy Magnolia’s Jefferson Stout to Mark Leavens’ review of sandwich board art over at Atlantic Crossing – we have come a long way.

While we look forward to big changes over here, we wanted to take a look into the past and discuss the three biggest, and most memorable, moments in our short history. We have visited Belgium, Holland, France, Canada, San Diego, San Francisco, New Orleans, Cleveland, New York, Washington DC, Portland, Chicago and more – all in that 11 month period.

These three moments stick out the most:

 

#3  — Beer Blotter Spawns From the New Orleans Beer Arrival & A Chicago Surprise

 

If you have ever visited New Orleans, you are probably aware that its almost impossible to find a good beer. You are almost assured of being stuck drinking some fruity concoction of a massive amount of liquor. Not anymore.

We visited New Orleans in the beginning of last November with little knowledge of any beer scene. But, we stumbled our way through bar after bar and discovered that craft beer does exist. In fact, we were floored with what we found; hope for a good future was established.

While we were in New Orleans, our editor was surprised with a no notice flight up to Chicago. It was her first visit – and a great opportunity to see an amazing world of craft beer. We visited the Publican, drank Three Floyds at the Map Room, bought a bounty of beer at Binnys and took in a Browns v. Bears game, before returning to New Orleans.

Upon returning, we decided to launch this site. Beer Blotter was born over a pint of Lazy Magnolia Jefferson Stout and NOLA Hopitoulas at the Avenue Pub. From that moment – 300 articles followed.

 

#2 — The Crew Visits West Flanders

 

The entire crew decided to throw down and take an excursion to Belgium, back in March. We planned the trip for a period of 12 months, holding epic Belgian beer tastings once a week until we left. As part of the trip, we decided to visit Germany, France and Holland as well.

Every day was filled with splendor. From the iconic bottle shops, to the revolutionary brewers, Belgium brought us to our knees. We saw Cantillon in Brussels, visited Moeder Lambis during its opening week, drank gallons at De Molen, sorted through bottles at Paters Vaetje, and gifted a Pliny the Elder to Hane at De Gans.

But, nothing was more epic than a one day visit to West Flanders. I had caught a pretty vicious cold that had put me out of commission for a few days, but I refused to allow it to defeat my trip to Westvleteren to catch Westy 12. I sucked it up, chugged some orange juice, bought some nose spray (so i could taste again) and we took off for West Flanders.

When we arrived at the Saint Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren – my cold cleared up. Whether this was an amazing intervention of the almighty himself or simply an incredulous recovery – we will never know. But, it all came together as my first Westy 12 was placed in front of me.

From there, we trucked on to St. Bernardus, visited a brewer’s cottage in Woesten, drove to France to sample Escambeq’s best (with a brewer who could not speak English), drank De Struisse’s finest in a living room at De Zon and enjoyed splendid wonders from the private collection of Alvinne’s owner. I’m unsure that this day could ever be eclipsed.

 

#1 — The Closing of Water Street Brewing & Alehouse

 

The number one moment is not a happy one. But, it certainly had a profound effect on me.

For days I labored over visiting my favorite beer spot before it would shut its doors, for the final time. In the end, I didn’t go. The horror was too much for me to handle.

If you never got a chance to read the hardest post I ever typed, take a gander now. For purposes of brevity, I will not relive the words that came to mind when I head that Water Street Brewing would close down. But if you were around me for those few days – you know it was always in my mind.

Bars come and go – that is for sure. Some bars leave way too early; that was the case with Water Street. Because of a legal spat that keeps the former Water Street brewing space vacant to this day (we just saw the space this past weekend and its still not even close to re-lease), Water Street was forced into early retirement.

But, like all great combatants, Water Street may rise again. Their Facebook page has provided snippets of hope to those of us who yearn to have Queen Nina pour us another IPA. Recently, Nina announced that Strange Brewfest would return this year! This was an amazingly welcoming sign that Water Street is still alive and kicking – somewhere.

 

300 More.

 

300 posts of Beer Blotter has brought us this far and we vow to keep it going. In the next month, we hope to have our new site running, filled with gobs of media and more user friendly resources.

Stick with us, please. We’ve enjoyed your company.

 

52 Weeks: De Zon, The Place to Grab Your De Struise Brew

De Zon! Right off the motorway lays the glorious Brouwerij Deca neighbor

52 Weeks: De Zon, Woesten-Vleteren, Belgium

No other place in Belgium to find a fresher Antiek or Struise.

Week 9 of 52 (We are through Week 12 – this one is late)

De Zon

2 Elverdingestraat

Woesten-Vleteren, Belgium

057 42 20 62

Rank: #2 of 12 (uniqueness gets the boost)

Neighborhood Pub/Time Portal

BEERS ON TAP (at time of visit) —>

De Zon, in a surprisingly not all that uncommon European business practice, has zero beers on tap.

BOTTLE OPTIONS: I don’t know for certain, but experience tells me that neither Brouwerij Deca, nor Struise Brouwers keg their beers.  This pub is one block from Deca, and is therefore the unofficial brewery pub.  Struise is a brewery with no brewery.  They make a large percentage of their brews at Deca.  De Zon carries many of each brewery’s offerings in the bottle.

FOOD OPTIONS:  Well this is quite humorous, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.  Read on.

Though visiting In De Vrede and sampling the beers of the legendary Wesvleteren Abbey was without a doubt a top highlight of West Flanders Day, Beer Botter’s experience at De Zon was quite possibly the most hilarious and notable destination of the entire trip.  Our experience here will forever live on in infamy.

Woesten is, at most, 8 km from Westvleteren.  Struise is, without a doubt, one of Beer Blotter’s favorite breweries of all time.  You can do the math, we were REQUIRED to go to De Zon.  We knew, however, that the chances it would be open at the time of our attempted visit were very small.  In De Vrede, in a stunning display of oddity, opens at the early hour of 10am, and you better believe that we were there when the doors opened.  This meant that our foray into West Flanders would, for the most part, be confined to the daylight hours.  As we had already discovered earlier in the tip, this is bad news when you are in Belgium and trying to drink beer.

Generally, beer bar owners in Belgium open and close their establishments at will.  One could easily go to a bar at 10pm one night, have a great time, attempt to go to the same bar the very next night at the very same time and find that they are closed, completely randomly.  This was a subject of much frustration on our trip, but 10pm is a reasonable hour of imbibing, mid-day on a Thursday, not so much.

Our attempts to view both the Saint Bernardus brewery and the Van Eeche brewery in Watou had already failed due to timing, so we were prepared for disappointment when we pulled up to the unassuming bar front in the tiny town of Woesten.  Before even trying the door, quite possibly in a move to circumvent potential rejection, we trotted down the street to take a gander at the brewery.  It looked much more like a beer distributor than a brewery from the outside.  Various unrecognizable beers were stacked up to extreme heights all about the outdoor lot.  It was like nothing I’d seen before at a brewery.

The beer outside Brouwerij Deca.

We figured we should get a closer look, but simultaneously, as curiosity grew within us, so did bravery, and an attempt at the De Zon door was made.  For the love of Black Albert, the door opened and a bright heavenly light led us into the promised-land (promised-land, maybe, but that light thing…I just made that up!)

A rare moment of humor was found in Tim Webb’s guide when he described De Zon as a “Seventies time warp”.  Humorous as it is, its god damn true.  The inside of this place is small, smoke stained, old as all hell, and full of dog…

Most likely, many dogs have come and gone since this place last had a makeover, but the latest little yapper to frolic amidst De Zon was the first to greet us, after quite a few awkward moments sitting at the bar completely alone.  We felt as though we had “broke and entered” into someone’s home and an uncomfortable feeling of not belonging washed over us.

We soon came to realize that we actually were in someone’s home!  De Zon, as you can see above, looks like a pub in every way from the outside, once you enter, suspicions arise, and then by the time you leave you wonder how you ever were fooled into any thought to the contrary.

We were finally greeted in Dutch by the pub owner/inhabitant/dog whisperer, a woman in her 70s (or so) that was very kind, but as we came to find out, spoke no English what so ever.  Now those of you reading who have never been to Belgium may not think that odd, and believe me, I’m not making note of it because I have expectations that everyone should be able to speak my language, but we were a good handful of days into our trip at this point and this was our very first encounter with someone that spoke absolutely no English.  It was weird.  I had expected it from the beginning of the trip, but it was still weird.

A little Antiek at De Zon. Surprisingly, this was a hard beer to track down.

We fumbled a bit through the ordering process (and actually learned how to accurately pronounce De Struise in Dutch in the process), but we were eventually served beer, and that was an accomplishment of great ecstasy.  I really wish you could hear our conversation with this woman in your head like I can.  The words “De Struise” were said aloud at least…oh I don’t know…like 10 times each by all parties present.  That was about the extent of our communication.  We understood “De Struise”, the end.  Could be worse things to bond over.

We were kindly served a bowl of nuts to snack on, a bowl full of nuts and…dog hair.  I present the food options of De Zon.  Yum!

At least we drank well.  Bottles enjoyed:  Brouwerij Verstraete’s (of Diksmuide, one of our favorite town names, pronounced like male genitalia and wet dirt all smashed together) Papegaei, a Belgian strong pale ale brewed at Deca, Deca’s Vleteren Dark Old Strong Ale, Struise Tsjeeses, a Belgian strong pale ale, and Struise Black Damnation, a Russian imperial stout.  All were amazing.

Amidst our beer drinking, two joyous events transpired.  First, a trip to the bathroom.

There was one hallway that split off from the bar area that was clearly the only possible home for the bathrooms.  After a few steps down the hall it became apparent that the men’s room was behind the door straight ahead.  A bit of confusion struck me as I opened the door and found daylight…an outdoor courtyard of sorts was behind the door.  Had I misinterpreted the foreign markings for men’s room?  Not unlikely, but a quick second glance at the door supported my initial decision.

I allowed the door to close behind me, and it immediately was evident, I was in the “men’s room” after all.  Two urinals were fastened to the wall that marked the right hand side border of the patio.  Quite possibly the greatest bathroom ever!

Ah the subtle delight of permissive urination in the great outdoors

Next up, a visit from the perma-smoking co-owner/co-inhabitor/co-whisperer.  This was clear not only due to the fact that he was in just as many photos tacked to the walls of the bar as our female host (who was so rudely interrupted from her sit and magazine read at the table directly next to us [awkward!]), but also due to the fact that he was greeted much less jarringly from the shedding dog at our feet.

Soon after his arrival, both hosts slipped through the non-bathroom door in the hallway that let into the house portion of the building.  Smoking was soon accompanied by a lover’s quarrel, quite visible and audible through the door that was left wide open for our pleasure.  At this point, we tried our very best to make a quick exit, which wasn’t easy, but we escaped relatively unscathed.

Thanks De Zon, you were…a…ma…zing!

That closer look at the brewery that we were earlier distracted from came directly after our departure from De Zon, and after our loss of a single tear out of pure respect for De Zon’s epicness.

The Deca brewery visit was very much worth it.  We ended up acquiring some very rare versions of Black Damnation; III (Black Mes) and IV (Coffee Club).  These were successfully transported back to The States for future enjoyment.  Woesten = Great Success!