We are almost at the end of the
calendar. Only one more beer after
today! I will be posting it today as
well because I had meant to post this last night and then got busy with working
on the launch of my new blog. Luckily it
is basically ready to go!
First thing I’ll be doing is moving all
these posts over there. I still have the
24th beer and the final recap of what we saw in the Calendar. Once that is done then I’ll put a new post up
explaining the goal of the new blog and then we will go from there. I have a back log of beers to review from my
time in the Maritimes and I am excited to tell you about them.
Today’s beer comes to us from Israel
making it another Asian beer. The beer
is called Mosco and is brewed in the Judean Mountain in the village of Zanuch
in Israel. Annoyingly the website is
down for them to update it and so I can’t find any information the brewer or
brewery other than its location. Seems
that a variety of the beers in the calendar are trying to sabotage my ability
to review them. Oh well, we shall just
move into the beer style and its review.
The beer is a Strong Blonde ale brewed
in the Belgian method, So a Beligan Pale Ale essentially. Blonde ales are very pale in color and are
usually clear, crisp and dry. Being brewed
in the Belgian style means that it will use wheat malts which will make it
cloudier than you’d expect but it should still hold the same coloring. Blondes are from the Pale Ale variety of beer
and usually have a lighter body with a subdued malt character and large hop
profile. They aren’t hoppy by any means,
but they typically are not malty either.
Think of Coors or Coors light. Onto it then!
Rating:
67/100
Appearance: Cloudy with a straw
coloring and quite a bit of yeast sediment.
Smell: Yeasty on the nose with caramel malts and grassy/lemony notes from the hops.
Taste: Cool and crisp with a dry finish. Slight fruitiness with a sickly sweetness making it taste far more alcoholic than the 6.5% abv should account for. Not as crisp as I would expect as the wheat malts make for a creamier mouth feel so the taste is subdued a bit on the end.
Mouth feel: Light body with creamy mouth feel with good carbonation.
Overall: Not the best Belgian style beer I’ve had in this variety nor even in this calendar. The yeast sediment is a big turnoff for this style of beer as was the overly sweet character to it. Overall this beer was below average for its style and not really a good showing for this calendar.
Do I like it: No, I did not enjoy this beer. The sweetness was too much, it didn’t have the body and flavor that I would expect in a Belgian beer. I would not be interested in drinking this one again.
Smell: Yeasty on the nose with caramel malts and grassy/lemony notes from the hops.
Taste: Cool and crisp with a dry finish. Slight fruitiness with a sickly sweetness making it taste far more alcoholic than the 6.5% abv should account for. Not as crisp as I would expect as the wheat malts make for a creamier mouth feel so the taste is subdued a bit on the end.
Mouth feel: Light body with creamy mouth feel with good carbonation.
Overall: Not the best Belgian style beer I’ve had in this variety nor even in this calendar. The yeast sediment is a big turnoff for this style of beer as was the overly sweet character to it. Overall this beer was below average for its style and not really a good showing for this calendar.
Do I like it: No, I did not enjoy this beer. The sweetness was too much, it didn’t have the body and flavor that I would expect in a Belgian beer. I would not be interested in drinking this one again.
Well, what a journey: 24 beers from around the world in a variety
of different styles. This process has
given me a great deal of insight into brewing and breweries around the world. I feel I have learned a great deal and I
respect and appreciate beer a lot more than I did before this. I certainly hope I have been able instill in
some of you the same sort of sense of appreciation.
Our final beer comes to us from Sound Brewery out of Washington State in the USA.
Founded by Mark Hood and Brad Ginn, two seasoned home brewers, Sound
Brewery began brewing in Poulsbo in February of 2011. They have been brewing some award-winning
beers that are Belgian inspired as well as traditionally northwest style beers
as well.
The beer that has been given to us for
the very last beer of this calendar is the Entendez Noel Belgian Quadrupel. Sitting at 11.5% abv this is certainly a
strong beer, bordering on a barley wine that promises to bring a good
bitterness along with the warmth of malt.
Sitting at 50 IBU it is certainly up there with a good hoppy IPA for
bitterness and having been brewed in the Belgian style, it promises to be a
strong upfront beer with lots of complexity.
They’ve used Trappist yeast, Belgian Pilsner malts, cane sugar, and
Motueka hops.
Quardrupels are a beer that is
traditionally brewed by the Trappist Monks of Belgium. Trappist Monks are renowned worldwide for
their brewing abilities and rarely sell beer outside of their monasteries. My brother had the opportunity to purchase 6
beers from one of the Trappist monasteries in a very limited release (100 cases
of 6 beer each) in Toronto. They were
going for $100 a case, not cheap.
The name represents the strength of the
beer and originates from the use of X on the bottles which indicated this. So, a single would be marked with an X and
indicate a weaker beer. This is the
strongest beer brewed by Trappist monks and would have been marked XXXX. I’m rather excited to give it a try as it is
the last beer of the Calendar.
Rating:
82/100
Appearance: Clear amber colouring with
no head. Was concerned it was flat upon
opening, luckily it just wasn’t.
Smell: Lemon notes, hoppy notes, some sweet honey smell and a bit of the caramel malt.
Taste: At first taste it is a light bodied, well balanced, sweet and hoppy beer with good citrus notes and some honey sweetness in there for flavor. As I continued to drink the alcohol (11.5% if you remember) started to show itself making it taste like alcohol and overshadowing the other initial flavours.
Mouth feel: Light body with creamy mouth feel with light carbonation.
Overall: Nice, well-balance quardrupel that is better cold than warm. As it warms the alcohol comes through a lot stronger and overpowers the other flavours. They are quite nice though initially and this beer is well balanced and when I first sipped it I was surprised that I didn’t taste the alcohol. As far as quadrupels go that is a good thing and this was definitely a strong contender.
Do I like it: No, I did not enjoy this beer. It was good to begin with but as I continued to drink it the alcohol came through too strong. Perhaps it is because it is such a strong beer and not my cup of tea, but it overpowered everything else for me and made it more of a chore to drink. If I drank this one again, it would be outside on a cold Winnipeg day so that the beer would stay at that initial temp.
Smell: Lemon notes, hoppy notes, some sweet honey smell and a bit of the caramel malt.
Taste: At first taste it is a light bodied, well balanced, sweet and hoppy beer with good citrus notes and some honey sweetness in there for flavor. As I continued to drink the alcohol (11.5% if you remember) started to show itself making it taste like alcohol and overshadowing the other initial flavours.
Mouth feel: Light body with creamy mouth feel with light carbonation.
Overall: Nice, well-balance quardrupel that is better cold than warm. As it warms the alcohol comes through a lot stronger and overpowers the other flavours. They are quite nice though initially and this beer is well balanced and when I first sipped it I was surprised that I didn’t taste the alcohol. As far as quadrupels go that is a good thing and this was definitely a strong contender.
Do I like it: No, I did not enjoy this beer. It was good to begin with but as I continued to drink it the alcohol came through too strong. Perhaps it is because it is such a strong beer and not my cup of tea, but it overpowered everything else for me and made it more of a chore to drink. If I drank this one again, it would be outside on a cold Winnipeg day so that the beer would stay at that initial temp.
I have one more post that I will do for
the Advent Calendar. I will be summing
up the 24 beers we have tried indicating their styles, location, and choosing my
overall favorite. In that post I will
also be officially launching my new blog as I should have everything finalized
and organized. I hope that you will
continue to follow along as I blog about beer both reviews and news.
No comments:
Post a Comment