DUCCCC
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- Oct 12, 2007
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The second brew tonight is the Nostradamus Belgian Brown Ale. This beer is from the Brasserie Caracole, which is the same source of the Troublette Belgian Wit I tasted some time back.
The nose on this beer is big and almost candy-like. It's malty and not at all hoppy. As the photograph shows, this brew poured with a very nice head, but as I took my first few samples the head had receded to a simple thin sheet of very fine light tan bubbles on the surface. Carbonation is almost a little too much. This beer foams up a tad on my tongue, and it kind of reminds me of drinking a not quite cold Coca Cola right from the can in a hurry. That's not the taste though...
I'll start the flavor part of this write-up by saying that the ABV of the Nostradamus is 9%. This is a high gravity beer, or at least it is compared to what I usually drink. I am also quite aware that the Belgian way of regularly attaining these type of gravities is by using a good amount of candy sugar. I may not really be accustomed to it, but I'm finding it kind of unappealing, just as I found the hot flavors in the Troublette disappointing, I'm feeling a little let down here. I am really beginning to believe that I might not be as big a Belgian fan as I had previously imagined myself to be. The really big surprise to me here is the trick of the nose. This beer had my tongue tricked into expecting something similar to the Belhaven Wee Heavy, with it's slightly ripened banana hints and heavy malt notes in the aroma. When one takes a nice sip, and lets it rest on the tongue, it does warm the mouth, as well as give wine/sherry-like twang to the tastebuds. The suggested serving temp of this bottle says 55ºF, and I poured this one colder than that, but as it warms up the bite at the back of the tongue becomes more prominent. There's also some other harsh tastes present, but I'm reluctant to simply write this off as a bad bottle, and simply say that I think it's just me and the Belgians. I am really looking forward to cracking open the last two beers in this latest collection, as they're also both Belgians as well, and I'm dying to find out if I should just avoid them all from now on.
edited for spelling