Our European Adventure

J: Ah, that is delicious! Caramel-y. It’s so smooth! Most beers get to “smooth” by not being carbonated. It’s kind of a cheat.
M: Yeah, they do it by texture instead of taste.
J: What is it?
M: I don’t know. “The newest.”
J: You didn’t ask what it was?
M: I asked for the newest.
J: I’m going to go find out what it is now.
14/1000: Abbaye du Val Dieu Grand Cru, of Belgium
J: This beer is from a brewery that is nearly eight hundred years old!
M: It’s one of those monk beers? What religion are the monks, generally? And are they the same that make the cheese?
J: I don’t know the answers to these questions. We should get a guest monk.
M: I have an image of them with the brown robes and the knotted robes and the Friar Tuck hair, but… is it some weird Catholic thing?
J: I would have said Catholic.
M: There are no Catholic monks, are there? Who’s heard of a Catholic monk?
J: This beer just floors me.
M: You love it way more than I do.
J: It just hits me with taste but it doesn’t overwhelm.
15/1000: Pinkus Organic Munster Alt, of Germany

J: I want to look at this label. It’s got these guys on it.
M: Are they Germans? It’s like, “Look at me, I’m fancy and responsible.” And the other guy: “I’m a crazy criminal!” He looks like Che Guevara. It’s his son, maybe?
J: He does look like Che.
M: So this is kind of skunky smelling. Tastes kind of thick.
J: Looks so thin.
M: Yeah, I was surprised. It has a very traditional “beer” aftertaste, maybe like shitty American beer.
J: You don’t like the aftertaste?
M: It’s not that I don’t like it, but it’s just like I had some Budweiser.
J: I am not finding myself wowed by this beer. I’d like to bring it to a party to look fancy and then let other people drink it, and they will be perfectly happy with it. So I’m saying, I could see myself buying this again.
M: Oh, and it’s got that big USDA Organic label, so it’s good for Portland. People love that shit.
J: No way would I get a keg of this.
M: I’m not sure I need to finish it. But it seems disrespectful. Not to this beer, but to beer in general.
16/1000: Belzebuth Blond Ale, of France

M: “The Most Unique Ale in the World.”
J: Oh, God, this is going to be awful.
M: It smells like the 120 [Minute IPA]… Oh no…
J: Hmm, It tastes like some of the strong Belgians I’ve had. This is different, but it’s not awful. It’s got that same sweetness.
M: I would say I don’t like this, but not that I hate it.
J: It’s about the context, it’s about what you think of yourself as drinking. There are many kinds of beer.
M: But I feel like I’ve had this before, and there’s nothing new and interesting. It’s not “the most unique ale in the world.”
J: We were looking for a French beer on the shelves, and could hardly find one. There were two, I think. They’re not known for their brews.
M: But how can you have a whole country whose culture is based on food and wine and not have some good beers come out of that?
J: Mike, they drink wine all the time.
M: But the French are so in love with themselves, I would think they’d want to drink French beer. With a French flag and a beret.

J: The other French beer is just like that! It’s about independence and it has the tri-color on it!
M: I bet it’s better than this.
J: This is basically a strong (13% ABV) Belgian beer. Nothing subtle about it, either, I think we can do better.
M: I think it’s a bad sign when the most noticeable aspect of a beer is their “HIGH ALCOHOL CONTENT” in big letters.
J: But for you to say that, you who would buy a beer solely for its label or its bottle… You bought Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA because it was the most expensive beer you could find. You are a seeker of novelty.
M: But…
J: Wait, are you telling me that you’re learning?
M: I would never argue that novelty is a sign of quality. New isn’t better. It’s just new!
17/1000: Original Flag Porter of England

J: Ugh, everyone is trying to be novel, because everyone is trying to market to you, Mike.
M: How?
J: I quote, “brewed with 1825 yeast, salvaged from a sunken vessel in the English Channel using an original 19th century recipe.”
M: I love that we didn’t know about this when we bought it. This is HISTORIC beer. We are drinking history.
J: I’m not sure what the difference is between sunken yeast and any other yeast.
M: The term “original” actually has some meaning here!
M: I bet they didn’t serve it this cold, back in 1825.
J: That’s a good point. I actually think it needs more taste, and drinking it warmer would bring that out.
M: I keep remembering, as we do this project, how much I like porters, and how that’s what I drank when I started drinking beer, but that I dropped that from my beer repertoire. Sometimes porter can have too much of a bite…
J: They’re always smooth, they have no bite.
M: Is bite the wrong word? How does this compare to Black Butte Porter, to you? This tastes lighter than Black Butte Porter.
J: Black Butte Porter has a little fruity flavor, and less chalky malty flavor. I think I like Black Butte better.
M: I think I do, too, but I just can’t talk about a porter without invoking Black Butte.
[Josh notices Mike’s nearly empty glass, and points.]
M: I’m telling you!
J: Man, you should drink nothing but porters.
983 to go!