Hi there,
It's been a while since my last post here. Apparently winter is at it's end, spring is coming, and I've been suffering a nasty flew, as I seem to be having the last 10 years around this period of the year :( But I think (hope) I'm over it, and feeling better again. So the last few weeks my head wasn't really "beer-minded" to be honest, hence the lack of posts here. Now, feeling better again, it's time to get back on track :)
Two weeks ago, we had our first "open" beer tasting at Bier Central. Anyone interested could join the tasting at a very reasonable price of €12,5 per person. The tasting was lead by Hans Bombeke, president of the ABC (Antwerps Bier College). Hans is a real beer expert and has been giving workshops about beer for many years. He is also a full-time teacher in beer-science, and though he doesn't admit it: he knows about everything "beer", especially Belgian beers.
We started around 8:30 pm and took around 2 hours. During those 2 hours the approx. 25 participants got tons of information about beer/tasting beer, and eventually tasted 6 beers covering a wide range of Belgian beer-styles.
The tasting started of with a hefty intro, giving us everything needed to enjoy a good tasting. During that intro we first got a ton of information about "beer" itself. It's ingredients, it's elements and everything needed to taste beer the right way. During this intro we got to drink a "De Koninck", or "bolleke" as it called here in Antwerp.
A bolleke has never been one of my favorites, but with all the information we got and the positive atmosphere, I have to admit that for the first time I actually liked it (and I was actually feeling sick that day).
As it was the first tasting, we got served a wide variety of beer-styles. Future tastings will focus on specific beer-categories, in which we will taste different beers from a specific beer-style. Now, we got to taste 6 beers all from different categories.
After the De Koninck we got a "3 Fonteinen Oude Gueuze". Allthough I liked this one very much, I noticed that several people didn't share that same feeling, which surprised me a bit. In hindsight this is of course a bit normal. Gueuze is a special and very typical Belgian beer-style, not known to the masses. You would probably have the same when you would do a cheese-tasting and started off with a bleu Rocquefort (while having never tasted different kinds of cheese). It's too much of the good, too soon. One's taste has to grow towards more complex tastes before being able to appreciate all the aromas.
The third beer was yet again a very typical Belgian style beer: a Rodenbach, an Old Flemish Red style beer. Rodenbach is a sweet-sour dark beer, with it's roots in the West-Flanders.
The fourth beer was another typical Belgian style which is most famous around the world: a trappist beer. For the occasion we got to taste a La Trappe Quadruple, a very strong, rather sweet amber-dark trappist, which was liked by many of the participants.
The next beer was yet again of a complete different style called a "Saison". The Saison Dupont was a very nice surprise for me, as I never tasted a saison before. Bitter-sweet and very easy drinking. I can imagine that this kind of beer is super during the summer.
Our sixth and last beer was a XX Bitter. As the name already reveals, this is a very hoppy and bitter-tasting beer. I was a bit reluctant to taste this, as very bitter is not my thing. But much to my surprise I actually liked it a lot, and is certainly a beer I will drink again!
This first beer-tasting sure proved to be a success and I'm looking forward to the next tasting on March, 3rd, where we will delve further in a specific category to explore more beers. Again, this coming tasting is open to anybody interested. Just mail me, or info@biercentral.be to reserve your place. Hope I will meet you there!
Greetingz,
Koen.
Showing posts with label tasting beer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tasting beer. Show all posts
Friday, February 18, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Tasting Notes ... the format ...
Hi there,
I'm about to start tasting all our beers listed in the "Bier Encyclopedie". I just need to bring the first batch of beers home and start doing "the hard work" ;) ... if all goes well and I don't feel sick tomorrow (today was/is horrible ... some kind of nasty flew), I'll go and pick up the first beers and all the glasses that go along with it.
But what exactly will I describe/write about each beer? Again, I consider myself a beginner when it comes to tasting beer. Sure, I can tell if I like a beer or not, but what does that help you? Your taste is probably completely different than mine, and what I like, you might dislike (or vice versa). And the goal after all is to have a collection of tasting notes that helps you and me make better choices when selecting beers.
So what things will I write down? For each beer I will first start to write down some very objective criteria: name, brewery, category, ABV, and a picture. Next come the tasting notes themselves: the aroma/smell, color and density of the foamhead, color and brightness of the beer, first impressions of tastes and the after-taste.
After that I'll try to list some other beers that can be compared to the beer tasted, and where possible maybe add some background information about the beer, it's history or other trivia. And I'll also try to give each beer a rating from 1 to 10.
This is of course an initial set-up, and as my tastings evolve there might be some changes, but at least it's a start.
If you have any suggestions/comments, please feel free to let me know, using the comments below!
Greetingz,
Koen.
I'm about to start tasting all our beers listed in the "Bier Encyclopedie". I just need to bring the first batch of beers home and start doing "the hard work" ;) ... if all goes well and I don't feel sick tomorrow (today was/is horrible ... some kind of nasty flew), I'll go and pick up the first beers and all the glasses that go along with it.
But what exactly will I describe/write about each beer? Again, I consider myself a beginner when it comes to tasting beer. Sure, I can tell if I like a beer or not, but what does that help you? Your taste is probably completely different than mine, and what I like, you might dislike (or vice versa). And the goal after all is to have a collection of tasting notes that helps you and me make better choices when selecting beers.
So what things will I write down? For each beer I will first start to write down some very objective criteria: name, brewery, category, ABV, and a picture. Next come the tasting notes themselves: the aroma/smell, color and density of the foamhead, color and brightness of the beer, first impressions of tastes and the after-taste.
After that I'll try to list some other beers that can be compared to the beer tasted, and where possible maybe add some background information about the beer, it's history or other trivia. And I'll also try to give each beer a rating from 1 to 10.
This is of course an initial set-up, and as my tastings evolve there might be some changes, but at least it's a start.
If you have any suggestions/comments, please feel free to let me know, using the comments below!
Greetingz,
Koen.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Bier Central beer reviews ... we have a plan!
Hi there everyone!
First of all, I wish everyone a very happy new year!! May you all get what you wish for, and a little more (of the good things)!!
I hope everybody enjoyed the new years'eve parties, we sure did!
Remember one of my earlier posts, in which I pointed out my new years resolution for 2011? In that post I said I wanted to taste (and describe) every beer we offer in Bier Central. All those beers are described in the "Bier Central Bier Encyclopedie".
The "Bier Encyclopedie" is our 86-page beer-menu that every visitor to our pub uses to make his choice of drink. Customers can also buy our "Bier Encyclopedie" for a very reasonable price, if they want to have a thorough look at it at home.
By now, we're already 4 days in the new year, and it's time to get started. But tasting 300+ beers is not an easy task :) ... Where do I start and how do I continue to bring it to a good ending? Honestly I was a bit confused and overwhelmed. Should I taste beers per category, or should I taste several types of beers of each style per tasting-session? How much beers should I taste per session? Where, and when should I taste them? It all seems very easy, but I promised myself to do it thorough, and as objective as possible.
This morning I had a quick chat with one of our beer-experts, Hans Bombeke, president of the "Antwerps BierCollege" (Antwerp Beer College). Hans gives us (the Bier Central staff) regular updates/workshops about beer and everything that comes with it. Presenting him the question in what order I should taste beers, he advised me to keep it simple, and just start tasting from page 1 to 86, in that order, so that you, the reader, can easily follow each tasting, using the "Bier Encyclopedie" (if you have it of course :).
Luckily our "Bier Encyclopedie" is already categorized, and is not an alfabethical list of all our beers.
A short recap of the categories, listed in the order as printed in the "Bier Encyclopedie":
So, using the list above, I should start with the beers on tap ... However, I will not :) ... As I want to start my tastings at home (as the tastings evolve, I will do them at the pub in the future), I have to start with bottled beers. So my first category will be the beers bottled in 75cl bottles.
As I've already learned the hard way, you should limit the number of different beers per tasting, and thus I can not taste one category in one tasting (20 beers is just too much :). So I will take one page per tasting max (each page has a maximum of 6 beers, some have less). One tasting per week, 50 weeks in the coming year ... that is about 300 beers ... It's gonna be tight, but we sure will try :).
Ok, we have a plan ... what's the next step? The first tasting!
Let's have a look at the first category: large bottles.
We have 20 different beers listed in that category. Wherever possible I will taste from a small bottle, rather than a big bottle, it's simply no use to drink 75cl of each beer to taste it. Taking the first page of that category, we see the following beers:
These will be the first beers in my "Bier Central beer reviews"!
Stay tuned to read the first tastings in the coming days!
Greetingz,
Koen.
First of all, I wish everyone a very happy new year!! May you all get what you wish for, and a little more (of the good things)!!
I hope everybody enjoyed the new years'eve parties, we sure did!
Remember one of my earlier posts, in which I pointed out my new years resolution for 2011? In that post I said I wanted to taste (and describe) every beer we offer in Bier Central. All those beers are described in the "Bier Central Bier Encyclopedie".
The "Bier Encyclopedie" is our 86-page beer-menu that every visitor to our pub uses to make his choice of drink. Customers can also buy our "Bier Encyclopedie" for a very reasonable price, if they want to have a thorough look at it at home.
By now, we're already 4 days in the new year, and it's time to get started. But tasting 300+ beers is not an easy task :) ... Where do I start and how do I continue to bring it to a good ending? Honestly I was a bit confused and overwhelmed. Should I taste beers per category, or should I taste several types of beers of each style per tasting-session? How much beers should I taste per session? Where, and when should I taste them? It all seems very easy, but I promised myself to do it thorough, and as objective as possible.
This morning I had a quick chat with one of our beer-experts, Hans Bombeke, president of the "Antwerps BierCollege" (Antwerp Beer College). Hans gives us (the Bier Central staff) regular updates/workshops about beer and everything that comes with it. Presenting him the question in what order I should taste beers, he advised me to keep it simple, and just start tasting from page 1 to 86, in that order, so that you, the reader, can easily follow each tasting, using the "Bier Encyclopedie" (if you have it of course :).
Luckily our "Bier Encyclopedie" is already categorized, and is not an alfabethical list of all our beers.
A short recap of the categories, listed in the order as printed in the "Bier Encyclopedie":
- Beers on tap (20)
- Large bottles (26)
- Trappist beers (20)
- Abbey beers (54)
- Gueuzes and Lambics (22)
- Kriek beers (20)
- Fruit beers (18)
- Speciale Belge beers (4)
- Flemish Brown ("Oud Bruin") beers (10)
- Belgian golden ales (8)
- Belgian White beers (8)
- Biere Brut beers (Champagne beers) (3)
- Saison beers (5)
- Speciality beers (119)
- Saisonal beers (and beers hard to get) (20)
So, using the list above, I should start with the beers on tap ... However, I will not :) ... As I want to start my tastings at home (as the tastings evolve, I will do them at the pub in the future), I have to start with bottled beers. So my first category will be the beers bottled in 75cl bottles.
As I've already learned the hard way, you should limit the number of different beers per tasting, and thus I can not taste one category in one tasting (20 beers is just too much :). So I will take one page per tasting max (each page has a maximum of 6 beers, some have less). One tasting per week, 50 weeks in the coming year ... that is about 300 beers ... It's gonna be tight, but we sure will try :).
Ok, we have a plan ... what's the next step? The first tasting!
Let's have a look at the first category: large bottles.
We have 20 different beers listed in that category. Wherever possible I will taste from a small bottle, rather than a big bottle, it's simply no use to drink 75cl of each beer to taste it. Taking the first page of that category, we see the following beers:
- Chimay Bleue
- Westmalle Triple
- Dominus Triple
- Ename Triple
- Gueuze Fond Girardin
- Iris 2007 Cantillon
These will be the first beers in my "Bier Central beer reviews"!
Stay tuned to read the first tastings in the coming days!
Greetingz,
Koen.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
My (beer) goal for the coming year 2011 ...
Hi beerlovers,
As this years end is very near now, this is the time to set up some goals and things I want to achieve in the coming year. One of the things I really feel important is to get a thorough knowledge of all the beers we sell in Bier Central.
Of course I already tasted a lot of the beers since Bier Central opened it's doors, but despite those efforts, I have to admit that the results so far are actually pretty useless and far from professional as they should be.
So, what is my goal (beerwise) for 2011?
Taste every beer we have listed in our "Bier Encyclopedie" (which is the actual beer-menu that is present on all of our tables in the pub).
But it doesn't stop there ... with "tasting" I mean: tasting and documenting every aspect of each beer, so all that information can be used in the future, mainly to help our customers choose a beer when they might be overwhelmed of all the choices they get. But also to share that information with my collegues and other beer-lovers.
As I already mentioned in one of my previous posts, I consider myself a beer-newbie, so before I will get started I will have to learn some basics before I can actually start the tastings, which I will of course share with you via my blog and other social media (Twitter, FourSquare, etc ...).
After the initial learning process, I'll have to do some planning (which beers first, how many beers to taste in a week, etc ...).
Only then I'll start the effective tastings ... it's gonna be a long, but fun voyage, and I hope you'll join me!
Please feel free to send comments/tips which can be usefull ... any advice is welcome. You can reach through this blog or via Twitter. Thanks in advance!
Greetingz,
Koen.
As this years end is very near now, this is the time to set up some goals and things I want to achieve in the coming year. One of the things I really feel important is to get a thorough knowledge of all the beers we sell in Bier Central.
Of course I already tasted a lot of the beers since Bier Central opened it's doors, but despite those efforts, I have to admit that the results so far are actually pretty useless and far from professional as they should be.
So, what is my goal (beerwise) for 2011?
Taste every beer we have listed in our "Bier Encyclopedie" (which is the actual beer-menu that is present on all of our tables in the pub).
The Beer Encyclopedie has 320 different beers listed (20 beers on tap, 300 bottled beers). Tasting them all is not as easy as you might expect ... for several reasons, you can't just say "I'll drink one beer a day, and in one year I have them all" ... so it will require some thinking and planning to succeed in this mission :).
But it doesn't stop there ... with "tasting" I mean: tasting and documenting every aspect of each beer, so all that information can be used in the future, mainly to help our customers choose a beer when they might be overwhelmed of all the choices they get. But also to share that information with my collegues and other beer-lovers.
As I already mentioned in one of my previous posts, I consider myself a beer-newbie, so before I will get started I will have to learn some basics before I can actually start the tastings, which I will of course share with you via my blog and other social media (Twitter, FourSquare, etc ...).
After the initial learning process, I'll have to do some planning (which beers first, how many beers to taste in a week, etc ...).
Only then I'll start the effective tastings ... it's gonna be a long, but fun voyage, and I hope you'll join me!
Please feel free to send comments/tips which can be usefull ... any advice is welcome. You can reach through this blog or via Twitter. Thanks in advance!
Greetingz,
Koen.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Tasting 101 ... (or at least how I see it :)
I'm far from a beer expert, but I do love beer a lot. And when you taste a lot of beer, you have to make some sort of classification for yourself, to know which beer you love, and which you don't and how you can compare the beers you tasted with each other.
I always get sort of frustrated when I see descriptions of beers. You always get to see so many descriptions with words that mean nothing (at least to me, I'm sure for a lot of people it does make sense).
Let's take such a description as an example: the Rochefort 10 trappist.
In our beer menu, you'll find the following description:
dark trappist | top-fermantation
deep red-brown, honey evolving to very fruity (pears, bananas, raisins) with touches of fondant chocolate, long-lasting aftertaste
Alc.: 10,3%
Ok, it is a good description (been written by somebody who has far more experience than I will ever have), but to me there are too much things in it I just don't see/taste.
Off course I already drank that Rochefort 10, and it is a great beer, one of the trappists you really need to drink whenever you get the chance! But "honey evolving to very fruity (pears, bananas, raisins) with touches of fondant chocolate" ???
Honestly, I don't taste that ... really ... none of the above. That doesn't mean it isn't like that, it just means "I" don't taste that. To me it is "deep red-brown beer with a very rich bouquet of flavors, which I can't define, and a long-lasting aftertaste (which I like)". And I would add the following: for me it's much better than f.e. the Westmalle Dubbel, but I prefer the La Trappe Quadruple just a tiny bit more. However, I will drink it again :). One of the stronger beers when it comes to alcohol percentage, and thus to be drunk with care.
So, what it the difference between those 2 descriptions? And which one is better?
Most obviously, the first one is written by an expert, and gives a rather objective description of the beer. A description that sounds exotic and would help somebody who knows all the underlying tastes, and who knows a lot about beer. To me, it gives me to much information I don't get, and thus in many ways useless.
The second one (mine) is very personal, and thus rather subjective. A description which is good for me, but probably not good for you, as you might have a complete different taste of what is good and not, than my taste.
Which description is better? In this case, I'd have more information from the second, but is pretty useless if you've never tasted the 2 other beers (Westmalle Dubbel and La Trappe Quadruple) used in the comparison.
So, to make sense of the 300+ beers we serve, I'm working on my own classification system which hopefully will make more sense to people, who are just like me, far from as experienced as the people who write those objective descriptions.
How will it look like? Well, it's still in development and far from done. But I do want to share it with you and would be very happy to hear how you people make distinctions between all the beers.
First I make a distinction between color: blond, amber or dark. For me, this is in most cases already a big indication how taste will be (there are off course many exceptions).
Next: strong or light (in alcohol) ... light being beers with alcohol-percentages ranging from 3 to 6%. Strong being everyting above 7%.
Next: sweet, saur or bitter. This is probably (for me) the most important distinction. Those 3 tastes are usually easy to classify as they are tasted by 3 different regions on your tongue. Sweet is tasted by the tip of your tongue, sour are tasted at the sides of your tongue in the back part of your mouth, and bitter is tasted at the back of your tongue.
To make things easy, you first take some "reference" beers. Beers you've drunk more than average, and to which you can compare new beers you taste. For example a few beers I use as reference beers: normal lager beer, Duvel, Westmalle Tripel, Rodenbach, and some others in specific categories (like Kriek and Gueuze).
Each time I drink a new beer, I try to classify them using my first rules, and then I compare them to my reference beers.
It is maybe a less advanced way of tasting than the real experts, and I guess over time my method will eventually evolve to the more "objective" way of tasting. But for now, I find it personally more satisfying and makes my beer-tastings more enjoyable.
Now I'd be happy to hear how you do it? How do you make your tastings as enjoyable as possible?
Greetingz,
Koen.
I always get sort of frustrated when I see descriptions of beers. You always get to see so many descriptions with words that mean nothing (at least to me, I'm sure for a lot of people it does make sense).
Let's take such a description as an example: the Rochefort 10 trappist.
In our beer menu, you'll find the following description:
dark trappist | top-fermantation
deep red-brown, honey evolving to very fruity (pears, bananas, raisins) with touches of fondant chocolate, long-lasting aftertaste
Alc.: 10,3%
Ok, it is a good description (been written by somebody who has far more experience than I will ever have), but to me there are too much things in it I just don't see/taste.
Off course I already drank that Rochefort 10, and it is a great beer, one of the trappists you really need to drink whenever you get the chance! But "honey evolving to very fruity (pears, bananas, raisins) with touches of fondant chocolate" ???
Honestly, I don't taste that ... really ... none of the above. That doesn't mean it isn't like that, it just means "I" don't taste that. To me it is "deep red-brown beer with a very rich bouquet of flavors, which I can't define, and a long-lasting aftertaste (which I like)". And I would add the following: for me it's much better than f.e. the Westmalle Dubbel, but I prefer the La Trappe Quadruple just a tiny bit more. However, I will drink it again :). One of the stronger beers when it comes to alcohol percentage, and thus to be drunk with care.
So, what it the difference between those 2 descriptions? And which one is better?
Most obviously, the first one is written by an expert, and gives a rather objective description of the beer. A description that sounds exotic and would help somebody who knows all the underlying tastes, and who knows a lot about beer. To me, it gives me to much information I don't get, and thus in many ways useless.
The second one (mine) is very personal, and thus rather subjective. A description which is good for me, but probably not good for you, as you might have a complete different taste of what is good and not, than my taste.
Which description is better? In this case, I'd have more information from the second, but is pretty useless if you've never tasted the 2 other beers (Westmalle Dubbel and La Trappe Quadruple) used in the comparison.
So, to make sense of the 300+ beers we serve, I'm working on my own classification system which hopefully will make more sense to people, who are just like me, far from as experienced as the people who write those objective descriptions.
How will it look like? Well, it's still in development and far from done. But I do want to share it with you and would be very happy to hear how you people make distinctions between all the beers.
First I make a distinction between color: blond, amber or dark. For me, this is in most cases already a big indication how taste will be (there are off course many exceptions).
Next: strong or light (in alcohol) ... light being beers with alcohol-percentages ranging from 3 to 6%. Strong being everyting above 7%.
Next: sweet, saur or bitter. This is probably (for me) the most important distinction. Those 3 tastes are usually easy to classify as they are tasted by 3 different regions on your tongue. Sweet is tasted by the tip of your tongue, sour are tasted at the sides of your tongue in the back part of your mouth, and bitter is tasted at the back of your tongue.
To make things easy, you first take some "reference" beers. Beers you've drunk more than average, and to which you can compare new beers you taste. For example a few beers I use as reference beers: normal lager beer, Duvel, Westmalle Tripel, Rodenbach, and some others in specific categories (like Kriek and Gueuze).
Each time I drink a new beer, I try to classify them using my first rules, and then I compare them to my reference beers.
It is maybe a less advanced way of tasting than the real experts, and I guess over time my method will eventually evolve to the more "objective" way of tasting. But for now, I find it personally more satisfying and makes my beer-tastings more enjoyable.
Now I'd be happy to hear how you do it? How do you make your tastings as enjoyable as possible?
Greetingz,
Koen.
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