St-Ambroise Abricot

Name: St-Ambroise Apricot Wheat Ale
Style: Fruit wheat ale
ABV: 5.0%
Serving: 341ml bottle
Brewery: McAuslan Brewing Inc.
Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
Weblink: St-Ambroise Apricot

Well why didn't I write about this one before? It isn't as though I can claim that it is a new beer to me. I have known about this one for about two years now, pretty much since my first tentative trips over the border. Anyway, it's summer, so time to break a few more open!

The beer pours an appropriately apricotty orange colour, deep and rich, with a thin head of fine white bubbles that disappears fairly fast. The aromas released are dominated by thick, syrupy apricot and floral scents, oozing slowly and oilily (is that a word, who cares...). The same flavours hit your tongue very very hard when you first take a sip, and for an instant you expect the beer to be super sweet, almost anticipating a sugary fruit juice. However, this is not to be! The apricot scents are maintained throughout, but are wrapped in an intensely dry hoppy cloak. These are all backed by a tellingly wheaten, cerealy (a day for hitting the y-key often, it seems) flavour that carries the apricot rolling along toward the back of your mouth. The aftertaste lingers for a while, dominated by the more sour tang of the apricot's flesh next to the stone.

What impresses me most about this beer, each and every time I have a glass, is just how well integrated the flavours are. This isn't a beer that has just had apricot thrown in at the last minute, the fruit is an integral part of the beer's complex palette. It is a beautiful, soft, inviting beer, that you simply can't have just one of. Served cold on a hot day, I can't think of anything better.

L'Accommodante

Name: L'Accommodante
Style: Ale Rousse Multiculturelle (Belgian red...)
ABV: 5.4%
Serving: 341ml bottle
Brewery: Brasseurs et Frères
Location: Dunham, QC, Canada
Weblink: Brasseurs & Frères - Les Bières

A quickie this time I think, just polishing off a few more from the cross border excursion of a few weeks past. Readying the beer store for a top up with another incursion into La Belle Province this weekend...

The beer pours an odd, cloudy, brownish brick red, with a thin head of fine, light tan bubbles. The head disappears fairly quickly, leaving a fine white ring. The aromas seem slightly flat, with just a slightly syrupy sweet smell making it out of the glass, perhaps with a hint of Christmassy spice? The flavours follow the same sort of profile, with slightly more complexity to the malty tones, taking on a maple and toffee tone. In addition to these, behind the malt is the uasual Belgian yeast bready/toasty must. There is very little effervescence, so the beer slips down nicely, with a rich thick feel in your mouth. The aftertaste is dominated by a slightly smokey, almost burnt wholewheat toast flavour, with just a hint of green vegetable.

All in all a fairly nice, easy drinking beer for cooler days.

Don de Dieu

Name: Don de Dieu
Style: Belgian ale
ABV: 9.0%
Serving: 341ml bottle
Brewery: Unibroue
Location: Chambly, QC, Canada
Weblink: Don de Dieu

"Gift of God", eh? Well now, if that isn't a statement of intent then I don't know what would be. Ok, so the excuse for such a bombastic name is that it was what Samuel de Champlain called his ship when he sailed for the New World in 1608. This initial trip resulted in the founding of Quebec City, so he is a pretty popular chap in Quebec as a whole, but he eventually found his way all the way up to Lake Nipissing in 1613, dropping his astrolabe up river from where I live in Ottawa. There it rested for 254 years until a boy found it in 1867, at the now appropriately-named Astrolabe Lake. Poor little mite never received a penny for it though. Anyway, enough history lesson, I'm sure you can go and find out all about that if you want. To the beer!

The beer pours a surprisingly bright orange-yellow, with only a faint yeast haze. (Unless you provoke the bottle!) The head is a thick layer of fine bubbles that fades gracefully to a thin film. On the nose the beer is surprisingly flat, with only a faint orangy and bready tone. In the mouth and, hello... where did the champagne come from? That's right, the first flavour is almost identical to the first rush of a good bottle of Reims' finest. It has the same toasty and sharp quality that a good blanc de noirs brings. The mouth feel is also surprisingly Champagne-like, with a soft mousse effervescence and the tingle of alcohol. This slides seamlessly into an orange and coriander combination, underlain by Greek honey. As the beer slips down your throat the toasted bread and yeast notes return. These fade after 20-30 seconds, leaving the honey to savour.

So... gift of God? Well, not bad, certainly. A very classy beer. It almost feels like you should be sipping it from a flute, not quaffing from a tulip. It has some of the qualities of a Trappist tripel, but with added zing. If this was how brewers 400 years from now choose to commemorate me then I'd be head over heels.

Blonde d'Achouffe

Name: Blonde d'Achouffe
Style: Belgian ale
ABV: 8.0%
Serving: 341ml bottle
Brewery: Les Brasseurs RJ
Location: Montréal, QC, Canada
Weblink: Blonde et Brun d'Achouffe

So... another of the booty snaffled on the weekend dans La Belle Province. Just to confuse things a little, this is a Belgian beer, brewed under licence in Montreal, with a Walloon dialect name. As if Quebequoise didn't have enough linguistic oddities of its own now they are importing les mots Belgique. Alors! (3-0 !!) I did have a couple of these the other night but wasn't really concentrating (something about being inundated with undergraduates...), although now I come to try it sober it is indeed a miracle that I woke up without a hangover the next morning... (4-0 !!) Just in case your Walloon isn't as polished as mine (I did once stop at a service station in Belgium, so I'm practically a native) the mascot is a pun on the town of Achouffe (where Brasserie d'Achouffe is based), as "une chouffe" is a gnome.

The beer pours a vibrant and surprisingly bright orange-yellow colour, with quite a cloudy body. Its head is initially voluminous and fluffy, with big open bubbles, but it fades away very quickly. Almost before I manage to put the glass down in fact. Considering the alcohol content this isn't really a surprise. (4-1... hmm) The aromas are dominated by a rich, honey-like scent, underlain by a classically Belgian banana-and-orange fruitiness and a subtle hint of spice. As the smells die away you are left with a slight tingling inside your nostrils... reckon there's some alcohol in there! Trying it cold the other night it didn't seem much special, but warmed up a touch it really opens out. In the mouth the spiciness really kicks in, with a strident clove and coriander seed bouquet warmed by the alcohol's black pepper notes. This is supported by banana and toffee flavours, which evolve into a rich butterscotch as the beer slips toward the back of your mouth. This lingers for 30 seconds or so after you swallow, but is unfortunately rapidly replaced by a harsh, hard liquor-like, alcohol residue. This is a shame as the beer really doesn't deserve it. Still, as long as you keep sipping you'll never notice...

All in all a very nice, mouth-filling beer of distinctly Belgian heritage. The notes I have found online seem to suggest that this offering isn't up to the standard of the European-brewed original, but if that is the case then I really need to get a hold of one of those as La Chouffe should be amazing. (4-2... better stop writing before the Penguins claw all four goals back!)

Update: 5-2 !!

B&F Délivrance

Name: Délivrance
Style: Scotch ale
ABV: 7.4%
Serving: 341ml bottle
Brewery: Brasseurs et Frères
Location: Dunham, QC, Canada
Weblink: Brasseurs & Frères - Les Bières

This could be the first of many posts... the product of a hasty trip over to the Eastern Townships this weekend. Well that's what you get for travelling with a car chronically under laden. Besides, dog number one appreciated the sterling job that the boxes performed in supporting her bed on the way home! So, as we were in the Townships let's start with a beer from the Townships, brewed only 25km by road (or 16km as the crow flies) from the gorgeous little chalet that was my home for a wonderful 48 hours. One small confession though: I bought the beer itself in the Sutton IGA supermarket... if only Ontarian supermarkets sold beer.

The Délivrance pours a rich, deep, mahogany red colour, with a thin head of small, tan bubbles. This head dies back to a persistent ring fairly quickly, with only very subtle effervescence to support it. The aromas released as it does might initially lead you to believe that it is in fact liquid mahogany in your glass. There is a dense, woody, smokey quality, a rich tobacco essence. This is cut by a slightly sweet burnt caramel note, and the whole washes up into your nose with a final wisp of something that is almost soapy. In the mouth it is the tobacco and caramel that assault your tongue, with distinctly more sweetness than was apparent in the scent. Layered behind these flavours are a traditionally Scottish peaty texture, with a side helping of damp roggenbrot. The sweetness contnues to the back of the mouth and evolves into a more toffee-rich palette, with the smokey tobacco notes lingering in your mouth afterwards. A little like you had chewed a partly smoked cigarette, I'd imagine, perhaps.

All in all this is a superb beer. Definitly one to be sipped in moderation (7.4%, remember...) if only so that you can remain conscious long enough to be able to put away two or three in a night. It is just a shame that my nearest source is a three hour drive away. Ah well, Pyropette is still there, perhaps she could be persuaded to tuck another couple of bottles into her travelling garter? Hmm...

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.