Spice up Christmas with Belgian beers
WITH the festive season here with a vengeance (I hope I don’t sound too jaded there) I’ve been thinking about Christmas beers.
No-one does these better than the Belgians who have been making these before almost anyone else had the idea.
Some are beasts with double-digit alcohol levels and some are even Christmas lagers (for example back in the 1920s the old Artois brewery in Leuven produced a premium Christmas pilsner and, inspired by the Christmas star, called it Stella).
That’s a beer that has gone on to world domination.
The beers I chose are from Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium, and I picked them up from the Beermoth beer shop on Tib Street in Manchester. Abbaye des Rocs Speciale Noël (9%, 330ml, £3.95)
The Brasserie de l’Abbaye des Rocs was founded in 1979 and, despite the name, there is no abbey.
Well, there’s a nearby ruin if that counts. There has been considerable expansion over the past 35 years or so and the beers can be found in countries around the globe.
It’s a brewery that likes to use spices in its beers so is perhaps ideally placed for a Christmas special in the classic Belgian style where seasonal spices are freely used.
It’s a chestnut brown beer and immediately there’s sweet spice on the nose with cinnamon and nutmeg notes.
It’s a medium-bodied beer with plenty of warming spice – cinnamon again alongside aniseed, hints of liquorice perhaps and a touch of dried fruit. The finish is short and, yes, spicy. A good all-rounder. Cazeau Tournay de Noël (8.2%, 330ml, £4.35)
The Brasserie de Cazeau is right on the French border and has been brewing on and off, in one form or another, for over 260 years, albeit with a few notable gaps.
The current incarnation started life in 2004 and has gone on to make a small range of excellent beers – look out for the dry-hopped Triple.
The Christmas special is really a classic Wallonian big brown ale and pours a deep dark oak with both mixed spice and a notable hint of hops on the nose.
Unusually for the style this is quite a highly hopped beer, albeit with a not particularly aggressive variety.
The taste has some spice and caramel sweetness from the complex malt bill but at the same time it’s clean and dangerously easy to drink.
The finish is long with the hops starting to come through. Really very good. De Ranke Père Noël (7%, 330ml, £3.25)
Brouwerlj De Ranke, despite its Flemish name, is based in Frenchspeaking Hainaut province and has been around since 2005.
It remains a small concern with a huge reputation derived from its pioneering and confident use of hops – something that was pretty rare in Belgian brewing until De Ranke came along.
The XX Bitter is a modern classic.
Unsurprisingly then there’s a hop character in this light oak, spicy Christmas brew.
The spiciness come from both the classic Belgian yeast and also the addition of liquorice which makes its presence felt but doesn’t dominate.
This spice character sits alongside, and complements, the clean hop profile which carries on as you drink and into the finish.
Exceptional.