2beerguys beer blog

A Most Enchanting Evening

In 1982 the first artificial heart transplant took place, Michael Jackson [not the beer specialist] scored a monster hit with ‘Thriller’ and Leonid Breznjev, who had awarded himself more “Hero of the Soviet Union” medals than some boy scouts have badges, died.

I got my first computer that year, the venerable Commodore 64, a fabulous piece of electronic engineering [don’t knock it, it was the most successful computer of its day] that cemented my affection for the United States. Any country that could make something this fabulous had to be an insanely great place. Though the fullness of time, and some direct exposure, have given a richer nuance to that sentiment, I will always be a geek. Anyone who has ever owned a Commodore 64 will nod their head in understanding.

In 1982 Thomas Hardy’s Ale was created by the Eldridge Pope & Co. p.l.c., masters of the Dorchester Brewery in Dorset England. This beer was made with the strongest English yeast. The idea was to create a beer that could be kept longer than regular beer. It ripened for 6 months in the cellars of the Dorchester Brewery before it reached maturity. It was to be a limited edition. Bottle “L 29958” was among its number.

In 1987 the ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’ sank shortly after it left port in Zeebrugge, causing the deaths of 193 people, the US budget reached 1 trillion Dollars for the first time in history and the world population reached 5 billion people.

It was my last year in school, the year I met Véronique, nothing more about that will be said.

In that year yeast from Thomas Hardy’s Ale was used by the brewer of Brasserie d’Achouffe to create Chouffeleir Quvae, to commemorate the joyous occasion of the birth of his son.

In 2000 the new millennium got underway [technically, it only started on January 1, 2001] and the Euro was introduced as the standard currency of 15 nations, Sir Alec Guinness died, the USS Cole came under attack in Aden harbor, Yemen, and 17 sailors perished.

For me, 2000 was a transformational year. I changed jobs by joining the ill-fated language technology giant Lernout&Hauspie, the next few years would prove to be a wild ride through the weird and wondrous underbelly of the corporate world. Many people around me were profoundly shocked to see a magnificent ship of enterprise go down so infamously. To me these were mere distractions for they coincided with the saddest period of my life. 

That year, a demure flask of Gulden Draak was quietly put on a shelf where it ripened with age.

In 2004, the Cassini-Huyghens probe reached Saturn [words by my mother and me now rest on Titan’s surface], the Boston Red Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino by winning the World Series for the first time in 86 years and a tsunami triggered by one of the strongest recorded earth quakes destroyed the lives of almost a quarter million people.

That year I started on the road to academic excellence by taking the first course in English Literature at the Open University of Milton Keynes. There’s more money in being a hedge fund manager and it’s a lot easier too but language is a challenge that inspires me, what can I say.

  In 2004, a 1,5 liters of Gueuze 3 Fonteinen met the bottle of Gulden Draak and they spent some quality time together.

In 2007 [I -really- need to write these things sooner] all these [beer] moments in time came together on one blissful evening at Muriel and Gert’s house. Here, dear friends, Michelin stars are prizes for the runner ups, a pat on the back for the also rans. There is no compare when it comes to these people who have turned the art of professional hospitality [for they once owned one of the finest beer houses in Flanders] into the blissful embrace of warm welcome. Gert has an encyclopedic knowledge of all matters beer but he would scoff at the very notion of clinical academia. Beer is a universe to be explored, it is an encounter to be looked out for, an opportunity to cultivate a life-long passion. Muriel is the perfect hostess. I’ve thought about those words, hesitated to use them because I think I have a rather good idea about how she would respond to them. Then it hit me: precisely because she would react the way I’m sure she would the words stand. It is actually true: Muriel is the perfect hostess. To me she embodies the very spirit of Flanders itself, warts and all, and this so profoundly that I have come to call her by that name [she is aware of that].

We started out on the patio with the Hardy’s Ale, by that time five and twenty years of age. Imagine that, a beer that has reached the ripe old age of a superb wine. Hardy’s masters had created this marvel with yeast capable of making the long journey through space-time, growing stronger as the brew worked its magic inside the bottle. There was nothing shy or timid about it. Almost as dark as Guinness, with a syrupy quality to it, with a rich, almost heady aroma of red fruit. Full in the mouth, strong, a cat’s whisker shy of brutal, the taste of plums on center stage. The aftertaste lasted for the length of the afterglow of the unexpected, but welcome, kiss of a loved one you hadn’t seen in a while.

After Hardy’s Ale Gert opened the Chouffeleir Quvae. Gueuze is one of my favorite types of beer. It’s in a class all of its very own and the strange thing about it is: you can only make it in a very specific area around Brussels, Belgium. In that environment a bacterial anomaly has occurred. When these bacteria communicate with the gueuze brew it gets the specific qualities that makes the beer what it is. That is why we’ve had to fight the European regulation police. They don’t want beer made in open casks. It’s unhygienic! However: if you close the cask, the miracle of gueuze does not happen. It’s as simple as that. 

You can take the ingredients and the procedure and make the beer somewhere else, and it will probably even taste good. But what you get won’t be gueuze. How it happens I don’t know. Why it happens, I don’t care. That it happens at all is what is important. Gueuze is the supreme quencher of thirst. It has the most delicious sour touch that takes the bite out of any thirst. It’s not very strong, there are sweeter versions for the people who don’t want their faces to go prune-shaped ☺. For me, gueuze cannot possibly be sour enough. There is no joy greater than a Sunday afternoon spent in great company with 3 Fonteinen gueuze. 

Unless, and until, you have had the Chouffeleir Quvae. It is gueuze the likes of which you will never know. It pours a deep amber with a foamy head. Its crisp, fresh aroma stuns the nose. In the taste you know its lineage for the plums that were in the overwhelming bouquet of Hardy’s Ale are available in great abundance in the Chouffeleir as well. And when the taste of sun-drenched red fruit fades away the sharp bite of sourness comes as an aftershock. Tart. Very. Though I am easily given to hyperbole when the fingers dance across the keyboard, I restrain myself when it comes to the description of beer lest it becomes stale and falls flat under the weight of the words. With that in mind, and begging your pardon beforehand, allow me to assure you that Chouffeleir Quvae is nothing short of phenomenal. I was ready to make it my official house beer, one I would gladly share with friends and other loved ones alike. Alack, when I say ‘you will never know’ I was not being smug. Chouffeleir Quvae was a one off. Only 1,800 liters was ever made of it and that was a quarter century ago. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the genuine article. Thank you, Gert, for inviting me that day.

Dinner came. Beef stew, a dish that has ‘Flanders’ written all over it. The primary ingredient <schmaltz alert> was love </schmaltz alert>, any other description would be an affront to the hostess. We had the beef stew with the Gulden Draak which, by dint of its protracted stay on a dark shelf, had developed into a refined waltz of malt, syrup and spices. A dark [and this is a tripel] throbbing 10.5% ABV love affair. The second fermentation in the larger bottle had given it more depth, greater subtlety, a perfect partner to great food in an ideal setting. Muriel has a gift for interior decoration, among a great many other things. The warm brown tones, the exquisite library and Sloef [the Great Dane of the family] felt like home away from home.

We finished the meal with 3 Fonteinen Gueuze. It could not possibly have the roar and thunder of the Chouffeleir, it did offer welcome and refined refreshment at the end [well, not quite the end] of a magical evening. It’s dry, amber [lighter than the Chouffeleir, to be sure], a taste of lemon, sour, very dry. Bliss. Gueuze, to the unitiated, can come as an unexpected and sadly not an altogether pleasant surprise. Once you acquired the taste though it’s impossible not to love. A truly magnificent beer [wait, was that hyperbole? Sorry about that]. Properly chilled it’s your best friend on a hot Summer day.

After this veritable fireworks display of one fabulous beer after another, the 18 months old Orval, which would be a fairy tale all by itself at any other occasion, felt like a greenhorn next to the reverend beers we had enjoyed that evening. Yet, at that age, this love child of the friars of Orval has gained a maturity, a round taste, complete… complete is the word. When it’s just bottled it’s a great beer for those who know how to appreciate it [I assumed everybody would instantly take to it, I was quite surprised that this does not seem to be the case. Orval, too, is a taste to befriend over time], at 18 months it has come of age in the most delightful way. Great to close the evening with as it’s a modest 6.2& ABV, almost something you’d give a babe [an old Flemish custom: give the baby a spoonful of beer and you won’t hear a peep out of it all night].

I have had ok evenings, I’ve had good evenings, I’ve had wonderful evenings, I’ve had an evening with Hilde [which, for personal reasons, had a few points over this one], but occasions like these are nothing short of the grand theatre of life, a stage stooped in the age old Flanders tradition of Burgundian living shared with people one loves and filled with great food and even better beer.

This particular evening, dear reader, was not yours unless you were there, I sincerely hope and very much wish for you to have as many like them as you can. I thank the gracious company for their sparkles of mirth, the stars for allowing me to be there, and very specifically Muriel for bringing the spirit of Flanders vibrantly to life and Gert who is a guru in every sense of the word where it comes to beer [he rolled his eyes as he read that, that’s because he has a great aversion of male cow dung, but ye Gods, ne’er were truer words spoken].

Ignace