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Stella is still better. :)
Enjoy your stay and take the time go up north to see the mountains in full autumn colors.
<added>There is also Alexander Keith's, brewed in Nova Scotia and Moosehead from New Brunswick. Pretty good beers too! </added>
"La Fin du Monde"
I actually had this one on the Winking Lizard's beer tour this year. It was an excellent beer - in the top 10 on the tour IMHO.
I had an Alexander Keith's this weekend, and that was decent.
Moosehead is very popular in Cleveland, so I've had that many times before.
Enjoy your stay and take the time go up north to see the mountains in full autumn colors.
I wish I had the time! Ottawa is one of my favorite cities, and I'd love to take a trip up there, but no time this time around.
I have a feeling I'll be in Canada a bit more in the near future though. ;-)
"real beer is black and white" and "is good for you"
If you're speaking of Guniness, that crap is terrible. ;-)
Of course, Leosghost should know that Guinness is "stout", and should never be called simply "beer" at all - however you spell the name! Looks like he's a fake Irishman ;)
[edited by: encyclo at 2:00 pm (utc) on Oct. 14, 2004]
suspect you come from scots stock?...how do you spell whiskey?
And I can trace my English ancestors back to when they hit the shores with William the Conqueror - so there! Even if that doesn't exactly make them English....
Having said all that, despite no evidence of Irish blood, Guinness is the only beer-like substance that I would drink. Just perfect when served not too cold.
My family ancestry is rather sketchy
Naw, I've read your posts, you were born in a VAX. ;-)
you were born in a VAX
Hmm, a VAX. Rather old and out-of-date, understands only obscure languages, well-past its prime and nowadays considered rather slow.
How am I supposed to take this?! :p
Of course, I could be an emulatio#?*%
-DKA100
howto 0x0, bdev 0x2a, booting...Boot failed, saerrno 2
>>>_
That's enough fluffy moments for tonight. :-P
Westmalle on tap is the experience that just can't be missed. I've had quite a lot of that experience a few times, working in a bar that had it (the tap lines had to be emtpied at the end of the evening). One of the few true Trappist beers left. Good in bottles too but not quite the same. Another topper beer experience is Westvleteren, a trappist beer which is only supposed to be bought at the gate of the monastery in unlabeled bottles (the older bottles have the monastery name embossed in the glass), but is nonetheless sold at a handful of cafés here.
After that horror (marketing-wise) of the ads for Captain Morgan or whoever's rum, the beer ad-guys decided sexist was fine I guess....
Maybe I'm the only woman who cares, but I drink a LOT of beer, and I really resent the sexism....
Did you try Sleeman Honey Brown? That is my fave Sleeman.
Sleemans also brews Old Milwaukee for the Canadian market, that is why it tastes way better here than in the states, although that is not saying much.
I used to be a Sleeman shareholder, made out ok on that one.
Sorry, very few good American beers that are not micro-brewed.
But then, I'm in the California wine country so I'm a freakin' snob...
I love wine too - yours, France's, Oz's, you name it....
I can trace my English ancestors back to when they hit the shores with William the Conqueror
They weren't English, they were Norman and members of a foreign occupying power.
[/off topic]
The last phrase from my post is
Even if that doesn't exactly make them English....
Yes, I do know my history.... as well as my ancestral background.
I do know my history
Point taken ;)
as well as my ancestral background.
Wich confirms you got French Canadian blood.
last time I had a blood test at the clinic, they shipped me out in a cage to the zoo.
Anyway, back to the beer - what's the verdict on Leffe? As Belgian beers go, it is rather good I feel, although I'm hardly a connaisseur. My father-in-law (who was born and brought up in Belgium) is a Belgian beer fanatic, and Stella is way too commercial for his tastes. I'm trying to find the name of some beer with cherries in it that he loves - if I find it, I'll post back (unless anyone else knows the name).
If it can help you with your ancestral backgound, it was Le zoo de St-Félicien.
Most other bears had white furr in that place, but they moved me there anyways because of my apparent lack of social skills with gorillas.
Leffe is what's called an 'abdij beer' (or abbey beer); these are beers brewed more or less in the Trappist style, and were often once genuine Trappist beers, but have been bought up or over-commercialized so they no longer fall into the rather exclusive group of authentic, licensed 'Trappist' beers. This exclusive group membership criteria include, iirc, requiring that the beer be brewed on monastery premises or in close proximity to the brewery; that the beer be brewed by, or with the control of the actual trappist community; and that a certain portion of the profit be donated to social causes. At the moment, the only official Trappist beers are Westmalle, Westvleteren, Chimay, Rochfort, Achel (a fairly new one), and Orval, all Belgian - all excellent beers - previously La Trappe in the Netherlands was also an offical Trappist beer, but they've lost the license due to commercialization.
Leffe is produced by Inbev (formally Interbrew) in very large quantites and is probably the most commercialized Abbey beer around. The dark beer ('dubbel') usually leaves me disappointed, since I find that there are such wonderful dark Trappist beers (all above except the Rochfort 'lighter' (less-heavy) dark, and Achel, I forget how that one tastes, so it's probably not worth writing home about). The 'blond' is fantastic if you chill it way down to almost freezing, which normally you shouldn't do with Trappist and abbey beers - great summer drink, and a lot cheaper than the Trappists. The Tripel is also very good, the Radieuse is good (a rather high alc %), worth trying if you can't get your hands on Chimay Blue or the Rochfort 10°.
If you can't find / can't afford any of the Trappist beers listed above, Leffe is definitely worth trying and will give you something of an approximation of what a Trappist beer can be. It'll probably be sweeter than what you're used to, and most likely with more alcohol.
Trappist and abbey beers need to be served in very clean, rounded-bottom glasses to prevent too much foaming, and to allow the CO2 to escape. Pour down the side of the glass (more important even than with other beers), in one fluid motion, and keep the bottom 1cm in the bottle. Later you can see if you like the sediment in this last cm or not, but standard proceedure is not to include it. Don't cool it too much, a few degrees below room temperature is good. And take it easy - foreigners are always getting rip-roar drunk in Belgium since they expect the beers here to have the same effect on them as the beers they know at home. This is not the case.
Duvel is definitely worth trying as well and sort of fits in its own category - not as heavy or sweet tasting as many Tripels, but a bit 'fresher' and more zingy, I guess probably more CO2, Trappists are really for sitting in an easy chair with great music and a good book - Duvel more fit for drinking socially and talking nonsense.
'Kriek' is the name of the 'cherry' beers - a 'kriek' (the fruit) is not a cherry as english-speakers know it, but a bit more sour. Kriek, strictly spoken, is a naturally fermented beer consisting of old and new lambic with krieken added at some stage of the brewing process. 'Naturally fermented' means that the vats are exposed to the open air, and the only yeast that's active is the yeast coming from the air. The yeast that's needed is only found in the air of the Payottenland area of Belgium. Typically, 'real' kriek breweries will have a lot of spiderwebs above the vats where the beer is fermenting, and it's been shown that these spiderwebs help the brewing process since they somehow facilitate the proper yeast getting into the brew. Since it's a natural fermentation process, the 'extra oxidation' process takes it course as well - alcohol turned into vinegar. This results in a slightly tangy beer. Other beer types in this family are geuze and faro - another brand of beer worth tasting that's like this is Rodenbach, though I don't imagine it's a 'real' naturally fermented beer, and probably uses cultured yeast.
There are few 'real' kriek beers left and 'kriek' is not controlled as a name as strictly as the name 'Trappist'. The most widely available kriek is probably Bellevue, brewed by Inbev. Some don't consider Bellevue a kriek at all, but more like the Fanta among beers. imho a better widely-available kriek is Jacobs. 'Boon' is another name you come across in Kriek, industrial I believe, but very very good.
More strictly brewed Krieks include Lindemann's and Liefmann's. Lindemann's is excellent and the café where I once worked, which was exceedingly picky with beer choice, served it. 'Real' krieks are less sweet and more tangy than the more commercial brands - commercially brewed Belgian beers have had more and more sugar added to them in the last few years, since the 70's, I believe, since taste in general was being influenced by sweet softdrinks.
