Beer of the Week:?

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Catfish

Art by David Shrigley
Joined
Jul 31, 2005
Messages
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Location
Nishinomiya, Japan
Well the Beer of the Week was a great idea. I like it a lot and would enjoy participating, adding my own input, and having an excuse to drink beer. But it seems the idea has passed.
I'm sad.
 
What can you get over there? Perhaps we should consider something reasonably easy to find for most people such as Newcastle or Sam Adams. Is something like Weihenstephan easy for most people to get?
 
Yeah, I wanna keep it going. We'll have to pass around the torch to different people to decide what we will do for the week. I'd like an advance schedule of what we have in mind so we can plan for it. I'm a shift worker so it is hard for me to be around on a Fri/Sat every week to get a thread started and/or participate in the tasting right then. Maybe we could make it a beer of the month, or a bi-weekly thing?

I DO want to keep it going though. I do agree about Newcastle (everyone should be able to get that) next.

I'll be in Minnesota next weekend so I'm out, but I'll gladly get some Newcastle when I get back and add to the thread. :rockin:
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
What can you get over there? Perhaps we should consider something reasonably easy to find for most people such as Newcastle or Sam Adams. Is something like Weihenstephan easy for most people to get?

My sellection is pretty limited; I just found Red Hook and a half dozen Rouge beers at a new store. They also have Gulden Draak, a Belgian srtong ale.:ban: Also a few German things.
You name it I'll try to find it.
 
In the interim.... Let's consider the Steel Reserve Triple Export.
The can claims an ABV of 8.1 %. They say it is " Slow brewed in limited batches using only the finest barley & selected hops. We believe this to be the among the very best beers in the world. ".

The taste leaves something to be desired. I actually enjoy the regular Steel Reserve. This isn't as good. My palate isn't educated enough to distinguish the difference enough to describe it.
The ABV is kicking, though ! I'm down to the last 2 or 3 swallows from a 24 oz. can and I'm really feeling relaxed.
I've had to stop and edit 3 or 4 times so far.

I'm gonna go drive the tractor !
Don't try this at home......:rockin:
 
sudsmonkey said:
I actually enjoy the regular Steel Reserve. This isn't as good. My palate isn't educated enough to distinguish the difference enough to describe it.
The ABV is kicking, though ! I'm down to the last 2 or 3 swallows from a 24 oz. can and I'm really feeling relaxed.
I've had to stop and edit 3 or 4 times so far.

I'm gonna go drive the tractor !
Don't try this at home......:rockin:

I think we should try and use this Beer of the Week to both educate our palates and learn to describe what we're tasting. If you know of a commercially available beer which really showcases a certain flavor. (My Pale Ale #3 tasted a lot like Red Hook ESB when I bottled it, was that diacytel?)
 
Can everyone get Chimay? I have a Chimay 3 pack here that I need to crack open one of these days...it has a white, blue and red bottle in it. Which one is the grand reserve or whatever?

At any rate, we should "beer of the week" all of the Chimays at some point.
 
I have never tried this:
574-oe8005.jpg


:eek: :cross: :drunk:
 
I think I'm proud to say I've never tried that ;). I think Chimay would be a great beer of the week. Which one?
 
hells yeah go with chimay...i like the white the best. they are all good though.
i think the blue is the grand pooh bah reserve or whatever. save the white for last cuz its the strongest.
 
I think the Red may be the best for review purposes. My understanding is it's the 'basic' beer of the brewery, and probably best exemplifies the characteristics of a Chimay beer. The white seems a bit hoppier and the blue is really good, but I need to stay on top of my game this weekend long enough to get some yardwork done.

Therefore, I humbly submit Chimay Red as the BOTW.
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
Therefore, I humbly submit Chimay Red as the BOTW.

I'll try that. Never had any of Chimay's beers, but want to start testing different Belgian brews. I've not had good luck finding one that I like, honestly.

I'm certainly no fan of Lambics. If I ever pulled something like that out of my fermenter, I'm sure I'd be dumping it in the bushes in the back yard.

-walker
 
Bjorn Borg said:
hells yeah go with chimay...i like the white the best. they are all good though.
i think the blue is the grand pooh bah reserve or whatever. save the white for last cuz its the strongest.

I had a blue recently, and it must have gone south a bit because it was nothing special. I used to LOVE the red, but this blue was boring. Just a so-so from belgium. Being that it's the Candyland of Beers, I expect more than this from even the worse belgium brewers.
 
Cheesefood said:
I had a blue recently, and it must have gone south a bit because it was nothing special. I used to LOVE the red, but this blue was boring. Just a so-so from belgium. Being that it's the Candyland of Beers, I expect more than this from even the worse belgium brewers.

thats funny you mentioned that i had an 'orval' last night and was rather unimpressed. The bottling date is 2/17/05 but the best before date is 2/17/10!

thats 5 years of a 6.9% abv to sit on a warm shelf. I guarentee it would be best 6 mos. to a year after its bottled.
 
Let's do it. Doesn't Chimay print the date on the cork? If so that would be interesting to note in the tastings. Also, any agreed upon tasting temp or protocal?
 
Brewpastor said:
Let's do it. Doesn't Chimay print the date on the cork? If so that would be interesting to note in the tastings. Also, any agreed upon tasting temp or protocal?
You're as close to a pro as we've got...any suggestions? I'd say whatever temp you like, but a tasting protocol could be interesting. The date is a good idea, as well.
 
My only reason for suggesting a protocal is we could get a more consistant result.

Suggestions:
A clean glass that allows you to see the beer and get a good noise off it (tulip shaped, curved lip, wine glass...)

A clean palate, no cheese or greasy food.

Beer slightly warm, maybe around 50 degrees. It shows its character better this way. If you wish, let the bottle warm a bit, pour your sample and chill the rest for later.

First smell (with mouth open - which helps pick up aroma) make notes. Noise the center and edge of the glass, take small sniffs, not long snorts.

second taste

third examine

repeat...

Or chug it down and make up some stuff about funky horse blankets...
 
I like the idea of a loose protocol. I went to a Scotch tasting a few years ago (in Sweden, oddly enough), and we all had forms we filled out for each Scotch that included aroma, a flavor wheel, etc. Comparing after the tasting was really interesting!

We don't need to get too detailed, but if everybody described the color, aroma, and notes on the taste (first sip vs later sips, etc.), it could be instructional.
 
I'm all set for tomorrow's BOTW tasting. I got my big, corked bottle of Chimay Red this evening (and a big, corked bottle of Ommegang Witte). SWMBO will be participating in the tasting tomorrow evening and will post her own comments.

I almost got all three colors because I got to the beer aisle at the grocery and blanked on which color we were going for. :eek: But suddenly I got a mental imape of the string of text sayin "April Fool's Red" from BeeGee and saved myself $15 by not buying the blue and white.

Who says drinking brains your kill?

-walker
 
Dude said:
I'll see what I can do about getting a bottle up in MN/WI. Hopefully the hotel will have wireless and I can make a post. :)

Dude, I stayed in a roach infested hole in the wall the last time I traveled, and even THEY had free wirelss net access. I suspect they might have been stealing it from some other source.

-walker

ok... there weren't really roaches, but it was the kind of place that roaches would dig. I would not have been surprised at all to have seen one while staying there.
 
desertBrew said:
I have never tried this:
574-oe8005.jpg
:off: I saw a dude just totally load up on that stuff (or something like it) at the beer store tonight. He filled up one of those mini-liquor store buggies with it. Like 15 bottles or something like that. Then he bought one (1) Scarecrow.

I had a hard time not cracking up in the liquor store! I guess there were 16 people at the party and 15 of them ordered the cheapest malt liquor, and the other one ordered a malty, creamy craft beer!
 
Brewpastor said:
First smell (with mouth open - which helps pick up aroma) make notes. Noise the center and edge of the glass, take small sniffs, not long snorts.

second taste

...

if swmbo saw me doing that, she'd think i finally cracked... i'll try and find it, is it sold in 12 oz bottles? or is it in the big wine bottles?
 
t1master said:
... is it sold in 12 oz bottles? or is it in the big wine bottles?
It's available in smaller bottles, but they're awfully hard to find, at least where I live. The large bottles are everywhere.

Sounds great! I'll be getting a bottle of the red label during my lunch hour! My girlfriend and I will try it while we brew tonight! I'll post both our thoughts. Good notes on tasting protocol, Brewpastor!

rouge.jpg
 
ah, hell.. I thought we were doing this today (Friday). I guess I'll have to drink the Ommegang Witte tonight and save the Chimay another day.

-walker
 
Imperial Walker said:
ah, hell.. I thought we were doing this today (Friday). I guess I'll have to drink the Ommegang Witte tonight and save the Chimay another day.

-walker
I'm not picky...tonight would certainly work better for me. Whoever cracks one, crack the thread open! I was planning on hitting the groc on the way home, anyways...not sure how long I will resist the siren call of a semi-exotic beer...
 
lol

the chimey is sitting on my desk at work and i'm ready to untie the little metal twisties and start chuggin....
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
I'm not picky...tonight would certainly work better for me. Whoever cracks one, crack the thread open! I was planning on hitting the groc on the way home, anyways...not sure how long I will resist the siren call of a semi-exotic beer...

Harris Teeter had all three Chimay's at (what seemed to me to be) reasonable prices. I think I spent $7.

They have both the big and small bottles. Strangely, it was more cost effective to buy the RED in the big bottle, the WHITE in the small bottle, and the BLUE was a wash.

-walker
 
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