May Beer of the Month: Westmalle Tripel

Click this image to Enlarge(this is an amazing collage)

At the beginning of April, my friend Amy and I decided to hop the pond and undertake a 17 day bus trek of Europe. The purpose of the trip was to see friends in London, Nuremberg, and Amsterdam as well as wandering around historical buildings, museums, and trying different food and drink.

Over the course of the trip I drank about 100 billion beers, ranging from Heineken (thanks Kurt) to my favorite commercially available Trappist brewed ale (which I will get to). I must put out this disclaimer now that everything I will say here is completely my opinion and perception of my trip. It is not me giving what I think are absolute facts.

While in London I was a little disappointed to discover that there was more of a drinking culture than a beer culture. I noticed that every pub had Guinness on tap as well as one or all of what is considered to be the cheap beers (Red stripe, 1664, Fosters, etc.) There was an occasional pub that would have an unusual beer available, but the locals pretty much tend to ignore them and shoot for the cheap stuff. I felt like I was the only one to order even Guinness whenever we were out which felt a bit strange. Maybe in Mexico being the weird Guinness drinker makes sense, but not in England. After the UK we visited Holland, Germany, France, and Belgium. I’m sure anyone who’s reading this and knows anything about beer could probably put those countries in the correct order of most interesting to least interesting as they pertain to beer culture.

France was in last place. I only drank one beer while in Paris and it was a bottle of Leffe, which is in my opinion the equivalent to Coors in Belgium. I’m sure there are more than likely some great beers made in France, and if you know of them please let me know, but at the moment I just feel that France needs to get it together.

Holland comes in at #3 because despite it’s love of drinking and good beer, their beer culture is actually just Belgian beer culture due to the neighboring of the two countries. When we were in Amsterdam we got to visit a really great brewery called Brouwerij ‘t IJ which was built in an old windmill. They offered 7 styles, all very affordable at €1.50 to €2.50 for beers that range from 6% to 9% abv. My favorite was the Columbus. Holland is also known for Heineken, but I was informed that the GIGANTIC Heineken brewery in the heart of Amsterdam is actually just for tours and the actual beer is produced somewhere else now.

Germany comes in at #2. We spent the majority of our time in Nuremberg and Lauf which is located in Northern Bavaria. They are well known for their beer, but somewhat like England I noticed that the drinking culture was based more-so on quantity than quality and diversity. I did find a brewery that I really enjoyed called Andechs thanks to our host Drew’s suggestion. The dunkels are great and the regular pilzens are enjoyable as well. I do think that the German purity law for beer is very interesting and makes drinking the beers more enjoyable knowing that they only contain water, barley, hops, and yeast. We were able to visit Munich and go to Hofbrau Haus which is one of the 4 main brew families that organize the gigantic Oktoberfest celebration. They like to drink beer and they like to drink a lot of it at once.

Belgium was my favorite. Where do I begin? Some of their cheapest beers are better than some of the best beers in other countries. The Belgian style has so many complexities and is usually very easy to drink. It was created by monks thousands of years ago, and a lot of them still follow the recipes exactly as they were. Even crazier is that some of the Trappist breweries still use the same strains of yeast to brew that were used for the same beers thousands of years ago. We got into Brussels toward the end of our trip and set out to visit the Delirium bar (which holds the world record for the most bottled beers available (roughly around 3,000) along with a wide variety of draft beers including the Tremens and Nocturn which are both award winning and known for the pink elephants printed on the bottles.

While in Bruges I came across a shop called Le Bier Tempel which sold many of the hundreds of beers produced in Belgium. I was able to find a couple bottles of Westvleteren 12. This beer is widely considered the rarest in the world, and the greatest in the world by some. I haven’t tried it yet as I am giving them some time to age, which can enhance the flavor and aroma since the beer is bottle fermented. I also stumbled on “The Beer Wall” which is supposedly a display of every beer brewed in Belgium. I don’t know if that’s completely true, but it has to be pretty close.

On our last night in Brussels we found a small grocery store by our hotel that among other things sold cheep beer. Since I already tried Chimay and Rochefort, and had just purchased the Westvleteren I decided to pick up Westmalle Tripel and Orval which are two more of the 7 trappist certified breweries in the world. The Orval was solid and enjoyable with a bit of a spicey flavor to it, similar to a saison. The Westmalle was very enjoyable. I can’t say enough good things about the Tripel. Despite weighing in at nearly 10% abv, it is a very smooth beer. The sweetness is also well balanced and doesn’t leave an aftertaste in your mouth like a lot of other sweeter beers do. Out of all the commercially available beers in the Belgian style, I have found my go-to, and the May beer of the month.

I can’t recommend visiting Europe enough to any beer enthusiast let alone anyone else. There is more to experience than one could in a life time, and that can be said for the beer as well.