Recent notes from Staminée de Garre, a tiny hard-t0-find pub in Bruges that features a house Tripel found n'elsewhere...
The first smell is the orchestra tuning up. The yeasty warmth stacks skyward as the fifths of the string section stretch into perfect tune, violins upon violas upon celli upon basses.
A beautiful head on the beer gives off spices like the plucked notes of a harp.
A sip: warmth. The low strings and bassoons start. A rare smooth creaminess feels like the woody timbre of an oboe, maybe a quintet of French horns playing in unlikely harmony.
There is a surprising staccato bitterness punctuating the beer. Each sip has a sharp bite in perfect complement to the soft texture, the pizzicato violas playing alongside bowed cellos.
Below it all the timpani rumbles: this beer is 11.5%. It doesn't taste like it, but it's there, a low thumping on the skull, undeniable and unstoppable.
The end of the glass. You want more. Encore, please. Just stay seated.
This beer is next to perfect.
Good thing I bought a 1.5L magnum of the stuff and didn't drop it on my way back to Brussels, dreaming on the train ride home of malts and melodies...
(Disclaimer: to be honest, I didn't write that in my notes at the bar. My notes are more like "Mmm!" and "11.5%! WHOA!" and similar nothings. But I swear I was thinking about oboes the whole time.)
Lovely, Sam! Makes me want to drink it myself. And I love the picture with the shadow at the end!
ReplyDeletewell done, sir
ReplyDeleteHa. The magnum is in my room, waiting. Waiting.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the three of us will be able to stand up after finishing it. It's two bottles of wine-worth of alcohol, plus the amazing addition of carbonation and delicious, euphonic maltiness...
Do beer people do Nebuchadnezzars too? Or is that just too ridiculous?
ReplyDelete