This is a special post, as it’s not often I associate a specific beer with a specific holiday. For many, ringing in the new year will be filled with toasts, and downing delicate, bubbly, pale wine from demure flutes. Those of you who feel bound by tradition, but very much want to toast 2016 with beer, worry no more– I have your answer. I give you, Bière de Champagne:
The above beauty is brewed by Brouwerij (Brewery) Bosteels of Buggenhout, Belgium. Touting 200 years of history, and multi-generational ownership, this brewery offers the logical and splendid alternative to fine champagne. This is a relatively new style of beer which undergoes a similar process as champange, including the use of champagne yeast. Mon Dieu!
What should you expect? Taken from Bosteels site, a “light blonde to pale
golden beer, brightly scintillating, saturated and with extremely tiny
bubbles. DeuS is crowned by a fine linen white, meringue-like head.”
Notes in the aroma include fresh apples backed by mint, thyme, citrus, ginger, malt, pears, hops, allspice and cloves.
Ah, but what of the taste? Bosteels provides an alluring description, “DeuS is delicate and complex. It glides over the tongue as smoothly as
silk and then blossoms into a creamy, tingling sparkle. DeuS is light and
vivacious and seduces you with the sweetness of a grape and the fruitiness
of a dessert apple. The finish is beautifully dry with a bare hint of tannin.”
I’ve been sitting on a bottle of this for about a year, waiting for just the right time to unwind the wire cage and pop the cork on this exotic brew. I’ll be drinking this from a pilsner glass. Anyone else going to join me on 12/31/15?
Additionally, if you’re celebrating with a different beer, I’d love to know what you’ve picked out. Drop me a line, you just might invoke beer-envy in me.
I’ll be doing a review at about 12:02 am, 1/1/16, let’s see if I get the same qualities from the beer during my experience.
Sources:
and as always, BeerAdvocate
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