1001 Beers

Beer No: 65
Page No: 315
Category: Blond

Woah foam.  Apparently De Dolle likes to bottle prime their beers agressively which results in gushers (just taking the cork out causes the bottle to foam over).  So you've gotta have your glass ready and start pouring as soon as you can - though, as you can see by the picture, you won't get much into the glass before you need to give it some time to come down a bit.  But I guess you wouldn't expect anything different from the "Mad Brewers" (Dolle Brouwers).

After all the foam dies down, the real flavors of the beer really make themselves known through agressive fruits and spices.  It just makes me long to try it on tap one day.  1001 Beers notes, "Don't hesitate to enjoy it on the outside terrace, which overlooks a peaceful rural scene; the quiet is only broken by the chickens next door, the lowing of the cows, and, of course, the merry sounds of a full house of dedicated drinkers."  One day...one day my Belgium trip will be a reality...

My review, cross-posted at RateBeer.com:

De Dolle Arabier from De Dolle Brouwers

Aroma: 8/10
Appearance: 5/5
Taste: 7/10
Palate: 4/5
Overall: 14/20

Rating: 3.8 / 5.0

Had from bottle. Gushes out when opened, immediately pour into glass which foams up like none other. Pours with a yellow/orange haze once the bubbles finally die down. Aroma is spicy with lots of fruits - orange, lemons, and hops. Yeasty undertones deliver a bready light aroma under the citrus. Taste is similar, very citrus, bready, and spicy. Finishes a bit dry, but the aftertaste is refreshing and lingers nicely. A wonderful strong blond that hides the 8% very well.

Beer No: 8/1001
Page No: 497
Category: Blond

Unfortunately, this is my last review from the Belgian Beer Festival at Pizza Port.  Though I easily tried 50+ beers, only four are being reviewed herein.  With talk of Pizza Port winding down, it reminds me that I really need to go back this weekend and pick up some beers from their bottle shop.  Pizza Port, Carlsbad opened their bottle shop a couple of years ago and features some really hard to find beers from outstanding breweries.  Their prices are a bit higher than you can expect to find in other liquor stores, but they often feature hard-to-find beers from the San Diego region.

The Pizza Port restaurant itself does quite fine in its own right.  With the brewery next door, they always have a nice rotating selection of in-house brewed beers on tap along with a nice assortment of other macro and micro-brews on tap at all times.  On top of the great selection of beers, Pizza Port features top-notch pizzas.  Their Pizza Carlsbad, featuring a pesto sauce, feta cheese, grilled chicken, artichoke hearts, and sun dried tomatoes is simply divine, but, as I mentioned earlier, it's the pepperoni and garlic pizza that I have every time there.  Oh, and the sumptuous beer buddies.  Recently, in Arizona, I stopped by another brewpub that tried to copy the Beer Buddies from Pizza Port and they were nowhere near as good.  Instead of a nice, doughy bite, this other brewpub opted for a thin crust, cracker-like buddy and it was not good at all.

So, long story short, if you're ever in the San Diego area, look for a Pizza Port.  They have three locations now, and a fourth will open soon.  Did I mention their beer festivals are the things legends are made of?  Yeah, the Belgian Beer Festival is that good.

So onto the beer, the last of the four, the De Dolle Still Nacht is a pale strong ale, clocking in at 12% ABV.  1001 Beers notes that, originally, the Still Nacht was brewed with a strain of yeast from Rodenbach brewery (one of my personal favorites - including the amazing Rodenbach Grand Cru (one of the 1001, review coming later)).  But when Rodenbach stopped offering the yeast to brewers in 2000, brewer Kris Herteleer cultured what he had left of the yeast and ended up with a stronger, more complex strain.  Since then, he now ferments 20% of the wort with lactic acid bacteria and then blends it back with the rest of the beer which is fermenting with his own yeast strain.  No matter how he does it, this winter seasonal is a gem.

My review, cross-posted at RateBeer.com:

De Dolle Still Nahct from De Dolle Brouwers

Aroma: 9/10
Appearance: 4/5
Flavor: 8/10
Palate: 4/5
Overall: 17/20

Rating: 4.2 / 5.0

Pours a hazy yellow/amber with a small, off-white head which lasts a while. Aromas of fruits, alcohol, and strong sugar/caramel. Taste is of more sugar, a bit of fizzyness, and malts. The beer starts and ends sweet, more of a sipping, after-dinner beer, but definitely something that will warm the soul in a long winter. Finishes with the slightest hint of bitterness and alcohol.

Beer No: 7/1001
Page No: 207
Category: Amber

Throughout the day at the Belgian Beer Festival last weekend, I reckon I tasted at least 50 different beers - from a sip of some to the full 4 oz. taste of others.  Given the fact that you start with 8 tickets for tastings, and I bought 28 more, that's about 20 beers of so that I had the full 4 oz. taste of (some beers were 2-3 tickets in cost, depending on rarity).  So while I was starting to feel a slight buzz at times through the day, the helpful addition of beer buddies at 10am, a pepperoni and garlic pizza at noon, and another pepperoni and garlic pizza at 2pm kept me grounded.  In addition, whenever I went up to get another beer from the wonderful helpers, I rinsed my glass out with water, and instead of just pouring it out, I drank it.  So I kept hydrated that way too.  So what does it matter?  Well, I had both of the De Dolle beers late in the day, but I don't feel that my tastings were impacted by the massive amounts of beer I imbibed.

This beer, like the Iris I had at the festival, I have rated in the past.  Back in August of 2003, I had a bottle of this and proclaimed it a "great beer to drink on a cold night."  And I don't think my review changed that much.  The Oerbier is a malty son of a bitch with lots of sugars and a high 9% ABV.  1001 Beers mentions that the brewery recommends aging the brew for a couple of years before drinking, and I'm not quite sure what vintage this Oerbier was, but chances are it was a 2009.  The book goes on to state that the original Oerbier carried a best-by date of just 100 days.  My how things change.

Note, the Oerbier is the beer on the right in the picture above.  On the left is the Still Nacht, also from De Dolle, and tomorrow's featured beer.  The maltiness is quite evident in the coloring of the beer as the beer is brewed with four different malts and dark candy sugar.  The De Dolle brewery has come quite a long way from when the Herteleer brothers brewed in their mother's bathtub.

My review, cross-posted at RateBeer.com:

De Dolle Oerbier from De Dolle Brouwers

Aroma: 8/10
Appearance: 3/5
Flavor: 8/10
Palate: 4/5
Overall: 16/20

Rating: 3.9 / 5.0

What a head on this beer - poured maybe a 1/5th of a pint and it overflowed on me...once the head subsided, there was slight lacing with a nice brownish/orange coloring. The beer itself has a quite interesting flavor - very spicy, very malty, very high on the alcohol meter. The aftertaste is quite good - especially with the initial alcohol flavor you get when drinking. Aroma is yeasty with a bit of citrus. An enjoyable beer - a very good amount of alcohol and a great beer to drink on a cold night.