a month of beer– day seven, Duchesse De Bourgogne

So my Constant Companion and I went to Brouwer’s, this amazing bar that serves a huge range of Belgian and Trappist ales, plus tons of other stuff. They swap out their draft list regularly to assure the discerning beer drinker maximum variety and flavor.

So I went there for a lambwich and had my first sour beer evar. It’s called by ‘Flanders sour’ and was the most wonderful dark red, like lightly foamed wine. The first sip is like drinking sweet food, but there’s definitely kick to remind you that it’s beer after all.

Incidentally, sour beer turns up in the Grimm Fairy Tales, but as a lesser sort of thing to wine. Oh, but it was so good for a peasant drink. It tasted quite as I imagined and even was the shade of dark cherry I’d ever imagined in the B/W illustrations of my childhood copy. It starts sweet and finishes sour, which is quite all right. Though another patron was drinking it and mentioned cherries, it put me in mind of blackberries for some reason.

(I wrote notes for all of this on one of the draft lists, with a pen borrowed from the ever-helpful waiter, who was quite bemused by the whole thing. There are even notes I can’t read, whee.)

Around the halfway mark, I had a lamb sausage sandwich which came with mozzarella and some other stuffs, and some wonderful frites that had their own aioli garlic dressing. Ultra-yummy. The food left it sweet only when I drank after the frites, and sweet primarily (the sour was still detectable) when I drank after the lambwich.

I have to say it was about the most ultimately cool beer I’ve yet drunk. Nine dancing monks out of ten, easily.

I may post the original notes at some future date, heheh. As an exception to my usual beer-posts, it must be noted that on the day in question I drank two kinds of beer. The second one will follow lateron today (though not in blogtime, since that is UTC and I am hours off it).