Brussels Day 4 pt 2: Good bad beer

I realized today, just now, right where I am sitting, just what’s wrong with so much American beer. I realize this as I drink a Mort Subite, a beer colorfully flavored with something I cannot put my finger on. I don’t like this beer. In fact, I suspect I will have to drink it in gulps to even finish it. Yet how can I call this bad beer? It had great depth of character and strong flavor. This is a beer that someone has put a good deal of work into crafting. This is a beer with pride. So it was, as I recall, with Hoegaarden, the ginger beer I so dislike. It did not lack a depth of flavor nor sense of character, I simply did not care for its taste.

I believe that was creates bad beer is a lack of these traits. There are so many beers, especially American beers, that have no flavor and less pride. Oh it has a taste usually, but no flavor. I’m not entirely confident that I could explain the difference, but I think there is one. It seems to me that Belgians put more work into crafting their beers than is given to wine anywhere. I may not have appreciated the taste of More Subite, but at least it tried.

Funny things, rants on paper. When I am interrupted in writing it, for instance when I am writing at a restaurant and someone brings out my meal, I simply pause and get back to it when I get the chance, sometimes many hours later. Thus it is that I have now left the restaurant (it was expensive and their lasagna made me feel sick. Oh well) and am now on my train ride home.

And appropriate to the ranting I started this entry with, I have now acquired three (3) bottles of what is alleged to be the best beer in the world by the numerous esteemed beer critics on beeradvocate.com.

It was not an easy beer to find. You see, this beer is brewed by Trappist monks of Belgium. Trappist monks are famous for their brewing skills , but the sect that makes this particular beer refuses to sell the beer to stores, bars, or corporations. They sell it only directly to their customer and only with the solemn vow that they will sell it to no one else. I wanted very much to make a pilgrimage to the abbey, but when I looked into it, no rail went anywhere near the town it is in. Bereft of a car, I had not the means to travel there.

To find the beers, I casually asked the shop keeper of a rather elaborate beer shop if they happened to have any in stock. It took me a while to recall and then attempt to pronounce the foreign beer name, but she knew what I meant well before I managed to say it. In hushed tones, she led me to the beers closest to being behind the counter, and every bottle in the batch she reached into was a clear, completely unlabeled brown bottle. She then looked me straight in the eyes and said “If you have heard of this beer, then of course you know, shops are not allowed to sell these.”

The price tags had been deliberately placed as completely over the bottle cap as possible, covering the only distinguishing feature of the bottles of the worlds finest beer. I left that shop 12 euros poorer, but perhaps with the least regret I’ve ever had leaving a shop. I also happened to pick up two bottles of Trappiste Rochefort 10, made by a different sect of Trappist monks and alleged to be the 12^th best in the world.

I am most excited for tonight’s tasting. Sadly this was the most excitement the day really brought me. I fear my toes defeated me more soundly than I had hoped. But the swans had become no less pretty and the environment no less serene. I also got to revisit the Church of our Lady, and tried Belgian chocolate for the first time in Belgium. They were both delicate and tasty, but definitely not the best I’ve ever had. I accidentally bought a cherry cordial without realizing what I had purchased, and I cannot describe my surprise nor the mess that confusion cost me.