Blanche de Chambly

Name: Blanche de Chambly
Style: Belgian white ale
ABV: 5.0%
Serving: 341ml bottle
Brewery: Unibroue
Location: Chambly, QC, Canada
Weblink: Blanche de Chambly

Right, end of April already. Crikey. Last day of the month so let's do something different. Let's head... east. Over the border into the adjoining nation of Quebec. While Unibroue might not be the best brewery in the small town of Chambly (that honour goes, in my estimation, to the superb Bedondaine & Bedons Ronds) it certainly is a very close runner up. Of two. Still, this was definitely my beer of the summer of 2008 and brings back many happy memories every time I crack open a bottle. Bottle conditioned, too, which is something the brewers of Ontario really need to take heed of. Now.

The beer pours very promisingly, with a beautiful pale amber-orange tone to the softly cloudy body, topped by a strident, thick head of large white bubbles. The aroma of the beer is dominated by a slightly cardboardy, yeast, citrus-and-corriander-seed florality (new word?). Unfortunately the first thing that strikes you when you put the beer to your lips is the aggressively carbonated nature of the brew. This is probably why I don't drink it so much these days, although looking forward to the summer I'll still probably be found on a terrace somewhere in Montreal with a glass in hand. Unibroue actually claim that this makes it similar to champagne... but I don't drink champagne in pint glasses. The flavours are instantly yeasty, with quite an urgent, slightly astringent note. This is swiftly followed by the banana and orange flavours you'd expect from a Belgian-style beer, underlain by the same sort of herbal and resinous notes that the nose provided. The beer finishes with little drama, and with only a lingering yeasty fruityness.