October 1997 Volume 20, Issue 10

Steward's Report

By Roger St. Denis

Belgian beers were the style for September and we had another great September meeting. The 9 members that showed up tasted some awesome beers. My notes are very sketchy and slightly unreadable but let me say the experience was wonderful.

Mike Wood wanted a source for Belgian beers where the beers would be in better shape than Beverages & More. He located a distributor in San Francisco who supplied a case of 750 ML bottles of Belgian beers. We had LOTS of beer.

We started with Charlie Webster's 1995 Winter Warmer. This was the beer Charlie won a silver medal with in Stern Grove last November. We tried the beer at last year's Belgian meeting and it has actually gotten better! He should enter it in this year's Stern Grove, he might get a blue ribbon.

We moved on to a Boernem Trippel, Hoegaarden White Ale both were wonderful. Everyone dumped the Riva Blanche. We moved on to the Roman Dobbelen Belgian Brown Ale and Rodenbach Belgian Red, quite sour.

Ken Koupal brought out his Dubbel which he made in June and bottled in July. This was a nice beer which will age well.

I believe this was when we took an intermission and Mike showed us his brewery. This gave the group an opportunity to move around, get some water and take care of other business.

I sort of missed some trippels and had to serve them out of order, luckily nobody seemed to mind too much. We moved on to the Hair of the Dog Golden Rose, a Belgian Style Trippel.

The Kasteel Bier Belgian Ale Trippel seemed to be the pick of the evening as being the beer to get, it was drinkable and people felt it would age well too.

We moved on the Straffe Hendrik. Everone felt the Catillon Bruscella 1900 Grand Cru tasted of raw wood and was somewhat undrinkable but I found this to be very complex and felt it would be an excellent accompaniment with dinner, like a fine wine. The Cantillon Geueze Vigneronne, a gueuze made with Muskat grapes, was also very interesting.

A Belgian tasting would be incomplete without the lambics. First was Boone Franboise the champagne of lambics, Lindeman’s Cuvee Rose Geueze Lambic, Cantillon Kriek Lambic and Lindeman’s Kriek Lambic.

We sort of made a detour to Thor's lavender mead which has mellowed out considerably and softened to a very interesting mead. This was enhanced by adding some authentic French Creme de Casis. Ann Pyles and I found the lavender mead was also quite nice with some of the Lindeman’s Kriek Lambic. We were getting a little out of hand by this time.

We finished up with the Kasteel bier du Chateau, which appears to be an 11% ale. The nineteenth and last beer we opened during this meeting was the Vondel Belgian Ale and I can't read my notes so can't say much other than I drank all of what was poured in my glass.

There actually were a few more bottles which were not opened. I'm hoping to get another invite to Thor's place to maybe help him finish up the Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus and Liefman’s Gluhkriek we didn't get to try. There may have been a couple of unopened bottles in his refrigerator too but I certainly had had enough for the long drive to San Jose.

Hope everyone can make next year's Belgian Style meeting, it's getting to be my favorite meeting of the year.