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description=Share my experiences as I work my way through 1000 different Belgian beers;

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apeau gueuze is made to the traditional lambic style and follows a menu of 70 barley and 30 wheat which is boiled to form the wort ready for spontaneous fermentation quite what happens thereafter is unclear but the end result is really quite blindingly sweet this gueuze was much more akin to the timmermans and the belle vue than the drier gueuzes and for me tasted much more like a sweetened faro pauwel raes argues that because of the use of coalfires there is less overall control of the heat and that this causes a heightened flavour of caramel in the final beer having quickly guzzled the contents of my glass i can kind of relate to that i admit to being a bit of a stickler for sweet beers but having tried now a few of the more respected gueuze on the market i would certainly seek the latter out on a warm sunny afternoon to quench my thirst 51 543352 0 686432 share a beer share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x more print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit like loading 2 comments filed under 6 de troch lambic gueuze tagged as belgian beer lambic pauwel raes february 7 2012 11 31 pm 244 dulle griet 244 dulle griet size 330 ml abv 7 i first came across the dulle griet when drinking the kastaar 96 a review retelling the story of the biervliet festivities which have regularly culminated in acts of mass kleptomania one of the items once purloined was the 12 ton cannon named the dulle griet this medieval supergun sits in ghent no doubt now superglued to the pavement and was built in the early part of the 15 th century it was then fully utilised on behalf of the city of ghent in the siege of oudenaarde which didn t completely end happily as the retreating fighters were overrun and the gun taken it was only finally returned to its true home in 1578 and tourists regularly come across it on their way through the friday market square in the old town the gun was one of a number of 15 th century superguns which were used in battles of the age and all were cutely personalised in a similar style faule mette faule grete grose bochse while the examples in parentheses were titled for either their cumbersome nature lazy mette lazy grete or their sheer size big gun the dulle griet mad meg paid its homage to the female figure of flemish folklore who was famously the subject of a 1562 painting by our old friend peter brueghel the elder 175 the painting which can be viewed in the museum mayer van den bergh in antwerp depicts the peasant woman meg leading an army of women to plunder and pillage hell brueghel s paintings are often uncomfortable on the eye when you start to pore over the detail but equally the vivid nature of the detail is engrossing once you give it your attention the female protagonist is caught in a moment in time as she sprints across a desolate landscape armour covering her modest dress with her weapon drawn in one hand and all her worldly possessions in the other all around her the world is in turmoil as her reality drifts into a perverse freakshow of fire and brimstone which leaks from the scarlet sky above hell and earth are uncomfortably uniting before us and you wonder just what future brueghel thought europe faced at this time little could he have known that 450 years later the land painted on his canvas would be an idyllic paradise of fine beer and gourmet cuisine the dulle griet which found itself into my glass this evening was a 7 dark beer which didn t quite match the drama of the previous incumbents of the title she poured a chestnut hue with an off white head which quickly receded to nothing the nose was alluring and was matched by a spicy malt flavour which was definitely enjoyable there was no standout moment for me though and while i enjoyed the beer i couldn t see myself going out my way to either overly recommend it or buy any more longer in the memory though will remain the painting dulle griet by peter brueghel the elder 51 543352 0 686432 share a beer share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x more print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit like loading leave a comment filed under 7 abbey dubbel schelde tagged as belgian beer brueghel elder kastaar mad meg february 6 2012 9 02 pm 243 den drupneuze 243 den drupneuze size 330 ml abv 8 5 the den drupneuze beer is the first offering on my journey from the brewery tseut it is their christmas brew and the label festively depicts the friendly pig who typically adorns each of their beers the oinker in this case is the one wearing a seasonal hat and scarf and who is clearly suffering as a result of the wintry weather a nice drop of blue snot falling from his snuffly snout den drupneuze of course means runny nose in local dialect beer and alcohol has often been cited as the perfect cure for a cold and as winter sets in all around us i thought i would put this theory to the test while the younger of us might head straight for the lemsip or night nurse ask anyone old enough and they will tell you that a warm cup of booze will cure your ills it is more likely if you get ill at your grandmothers house that you will end up with a brandy or a glass of hot toddy whiskey hot water and lemon juice than a nice strong belgian beer however this viewpoint is so universal there has to be some truth in it surely the hypothesis here is that alcohol can kill a cold through the fact that it produces an environment where a virus is unable to survive essentially if you were able to get enough alcohol in your blood supply you could in fact create a hostile enough environment to decimate the virus completely the one downside however is that the levels of alcohol required to support this would also completely kill off your liver back to the drawing board so the next hypothesis asks the question whether regular consumption of alcohol can make the average drinker less susceptible to colds and flu there have been a number of studies conducted around this suggestion and one in particular in the usa looked at almost 400 adults and noted that resistance to colds did in fact increase in moderate drinkers although interestingly not those who smoked a study in spain also suggested that a certain amount of units of alcohol per week did indeed correlate with an increased resistance to colds although they couldn t prove this in terms of spirits or beer only red wine which supports the theories that it is the anti oxidants present which keep the virals at bay now the last thing i want is to shift anyone onto drinking wine so what about a final suggestion will alcohol and beer in particular help to mediate the side effects of a cold the answer is almost certainly a resounding yes but it comes with a few caveats in fact a number of studies have suggested that a good strong beer can temporarily alleviate painful symptoms such as a sore throat or nasal congestion i m sure i am not the only one who would prefer a couple of westmalle tripels 149 to taking an ibuprofen or paracetamol the benefits of drinking beer over pills is self evident but needs to be balanced against the pain of the evil hangover and of course the fact that drinking alcohol will dehydrate your body which in actual fact will scientifically prolong the effects of your virus the moral of the story is drink drink and drink but if you specifically want to help yourself cure a cold then a little of what you fancy is perfect but any more than one or two is probably only going to make matters worse in the long run the den drupneuze itself is a rare amber festive beer a choice based on the brewers natural preference it is brewed from november to march and the current beer at 8 5 is a more watered down version of the original much stronger brew i am a big fan of strong amber beers but this one didn t quite reach my growing expectations it certainly looked the part but the taste never really went anywhere past a faint malty and fruity bitterness for the extra abv this was in the end a very average beer and certainly not the sort of ale i would entrust in getting me through a severe bout of manflu 51 543352 0 686432 share a beer share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x more print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit like loading leave a comment filed under 6 belgian strong ale christmas beer pig tseut tagged as belgian beer january 31 2012 11 13 pm 242 st idesbald blond 242 st idesbald blond size 330 ml abv 6 5 one of the highlights of drinking a thousand belgian beers is the opportunity to tell a good story i ve already come across a number of saints on my venerable journey thus far and i m expecting plenty more to come this time it s the turn of st idesbald to distract us from our guzzling although to be fair during his actual lifetime there wasn t a great deal to set the pulse racing the chief protagonist of the tale was born in approximately 1090 in west flanders he was of good solid stock belonging to the noble family of van der gracht who were lords of moorsel he continued to ingratiate himself with the more esteemed end of the community as a courtier and page to the count of flanders and followed a life of piety as a cistercian monk he became a canon priest in the beautiful town of veurne in 1135 and by 1150 shortly after being widowed he joined the abbey of our lady of the dunes ten duinen he would eventually serve as abbot until his death in 1167 where he was buried in a lead coffin shrine within the abbey the abbey was an important pillar of the society and as the beer label will attest in 1138 it was taken by the order of citeaux as an adopted daughter of the cistercian abbey of clairvaux the st idesbald beers in many ways celebrate this milestone as much as they do the man who for centuries lay dormant in his final resting place it was only in 1577 that things started to hot up a little when the gueuzen essentially the flemish uprising plundered the abbey and razed it to the ground st idesbald had been a key figure in the history of the abbey and the locals were keen to ensure his remains were left untarnished and so transported his shrine to a farmhouse in bogaerde it remained here until 1623 where a macabre local survey was carried out which involved opening up the coffin amazingly the body of st idesbald was found to be fully intact and uncorrupted the relics of st idesbald were to become extremely important to the local populace and while the abbey no longer existed the farm in bogaerde housed the coffin he remained here until the french revolutionary troops plundered the area whence his holy remains were whisked off to the relative safety of bruges eventually ending up in the hospital chapel at the abbey of our lady of the potteries amazingly st idesbald was not venerated as a saint until 1894 and you can still visit his untarnished remains at the chapel in bruges to this day although unlike in 1623 you cannot actually view his lifeless body any longer you can though have a beer to celebrate his life although the st idesbald blond is also hardly a brew to get your pulse racing it is a typical standard belgian blonde beer which pours a pale gold with a quite ferocious head the nose is nothing to write home about and the flavour offers little distinguishable above a light fruity twang this would be a pleasant enough summer barbecue beer for friends who perhaps don t quite have the urge to explore anything too interesting on the tongue but want something a little stronger than supermarket lager 51 543352 0 686432 share a beer share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x more print opens in new window print share on reddit opens in new window reddit like loading leave a comment filed under 6 belgian ale huyghe tagged as belgian beer st idesbald ten duinen january 27 2012 1 31 pm 241 zatte bie 241 zatte bie size 330 ml abv 9 another offering from the de bie brewery i hadn t had the greatest of experiences up to now from this small brewery notably 112 113 and 156 but i had heard good things about the zatte bie and i m aware the brewery had not always had the most consistent beers from their early offerings the name of the beer literally translates as drunk bee and at 9 abv a few of these wouldn t take long to instil violence in the common man if you believed everything you read 240 almost every beer blog or review you will ever read will concentrate on the sensory experiences associated with tasting the beer but we almost forget that when you drink beers properly as opposed to tasting it doesn t take too many of them of this strength to wipe you out seeing as it s a fairly topical subject i thought i would take a foray into what might typically happen to my body today as i get zatted generally the first few beers probably will slip by without too much noticeable activity but then things will start to happen alcohol increases bloodflow to the skin which will make the drinker begin to feel warm and look flushed the central nervous system will at this point also begin to experience some interference firstly with picking up sensory information from key organs and then being able to effectively respond to it this causes those typical symptoms such as slurring uneven balance and a dulling of pain the frontal cortex of the brain will also start to be effected by the alcohol now and will be the main reason for a lack of inhibition for many you might also notice for the first few beers that you didn t need to urinate but all of a sudden the seal has been broken this will be the combination of alcohol being a diuretic and your kidneys starting to direct fluids straight to the bladder a direct cause of the dehydration which will follow later in the hangover stage the liver starts to work its magic now also generally responsible for metabolising the alcohol from the body although it can only do this at about one or two units per hour probably much slower than you can drink if it s belgian beers that are on the menu then its likely there will be much more glucose entering the bloodstream the body resists this surge of sweetness by producing more insulin and it will struggle to know when to stop in the latter stages of a good beer session that typical shakiness of the limbs and dizziness is caused by the now depleted glucose levels this will make even the hardened beer drinker tired and the body will begin to crave a carbohydrate boost a biological explanation for the munchies it s likely that sleep will be the next thing on the agenda although this will be badly affected as well by the zatte bie alcohol has a negative effect on sleeping rhythms and the dehydration caused by drinking prevents the quality rest needed to fully recharge batteries at this stage also the pharyngeal muscles in the throat will have completely relaxed and therefore there will be an increased chance of snoring culminating ...