The Brasserie de Blaugies is a tiny husband and wife operation in the small rural town of Blaugies in southern Belgium. The wife brews the beer in a tiny brewery in the garage of their farm house while the husband tends to the business of the brewery. They produce a number of traditional Belgian farmhouse ales including Saison d’Epeautre, a saison brewed with spelt, and Darbyste, a saison brewed with fig juice. The Darbyste is said to be named after the 19th century Irish cleric John Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brethren and so-called father of dispensationalism. According to their website: “A traditional style named for John Darby, preacher of temperance whose parishioners were oddly moved by a ‘soft drink’ they insisted was just fig juice . . .” Here’s my notes.
Darbyste
Brasserie de Blaugies, Blaugies, Belgium
Style: Saison with Fig Juice
Serving Style: 750 ml Bottle
Aroma: Pronounced leathery and horsey brettanomyces funk. Spicy black pepper and soft sweet grainy malt. Spritzy lemon fruitiness.
Appearance: Orange colored and lightly cloudy. Big, fluffy, off-white head that lasted a good long time.
Flavor: Cidery pear and apple combined with bright lemony citrus fruit. The fruit character was enhanced by a fairly pronounced acetic sourness. Horsey brettanomyces funk. Nice wheaty bready malt still remained and gave the beer a bit of sweetness. Finish exceptionally dry with lingering pepper and clove spice. Fig makes only the faintest impression.
Mouthfeel: Very high carbonation and very dry finish just barley balanced by a malty creaminess.
Overall Impression: This was a bottle that had been sitting in my cellar for over a year. I think the wild beasties had done some developing as this beer tasted dramatically more funky than an earlier example I tried. But I’m not complaining. This was a bit like a lambic with an unusual amount of remaining malt flavor and chewy richness. Loved the fruit. Loved the funk. Loved the fullness.
We all know how to drink beer, but how many of us take the time to really taste beer? How often do you notice and appreciate the color, clarity, and foamy head of the beer in your glass? When was the last time you really thought about the perfect food match for that bittersweet and citrusy Double IPA you pounded with friends at the bar? Can you recognize umami in your beer? After reading Randy Mosher’s newest book Tasting Beer, you may just start to think differently about the world’s oldest adult beverage.
that we all grew up with and bringing us up to date with the science by adding umami (think savory or meaty flavors) and fat to the list of perceivable flavors. He offers a thorough sensory vocabulary of beer, identifying the main ingredients of beer and describing the range of possible flavor and aroma contributions of each and how these individual contributions add up and present themselves in a finished beer. In the chapter titled Tasting, Judging, and Evaluation, Mosher writes about the importance of the tasting environment, lays out a simple beer tasting process (smell, look and sip, taste with your nose, analyze and score), as well as explaining the different processes and criteria one might use in different beer tasting contexts such as judging for competition or evaluating for quality control. The final chapters present a breezy survey of the major style categories with descriptions and examples to taste. His explanations of the historical development of some styles are particularly good and point out just how often economics drives the creation of new beer styles.
On Saturday the Blue Nile Restaurant was host to a heavenly array of hoppy beers. With twenty-two beers to choose from, including three cask selections, it was a hop heads dream. They were offering $7 flights consisting of four ounce pours of three beers of your choice. With so many beers on offer, this seemed the way to go. Between my own flights and the sips I took from my friends’ glasses, I managed to taste a good number of the beers available. Here are my favorites.
The beer geeks are at it again. The theme for this month’s meeting of the try-to-taste-every-beer-in-the-world tasting group was “Darkness.” No, not the much sought after imperial stout from Surly Brewing Company. Rather this was an exploration of the murky and menacing world of dark beer. The assignment for each member was to bring “dark” beers that they had never tried. The idea of “darkness” was left intentionally vague to encourage a bit of freewheeling interpretation and exploration. As a result we sampled a huge variety of inky brews from imperial stouts to fruited porters to smoked bock and strong Belgians, with one particularly “interesting” grape flavored concoction that I will describe later. It was a beautiful evening, so we met in my garden. There is nothing like sitting in the back yard on a nice spring night drinking great beers with good friends.
have quaffed a pint of this. However, when considered in comparison to the many other great beers of the night, it didn’t quite hold up. A bottle of De Struise Black Albert proved to be quite disappointing. I reviewed this beer on the 
For the Belgians the real standout to me was Terrible from Canada’s Unibroue. This 10.5% Belgian Strong Dark ale had delicious fruity marshmallow aromas and luscious flavors of sugar, raisins, bananas and spice, always with this creamy marshmallow character in the background. It was balanced by a slight lactic acidity that kept it from being too rich. I bought myself a bottle the very next day. We were treated to a bottle of 2004 vintage Westvleteren 12. This beer is different every time you taste it. This particular example was super fruity with big cherry aromas and flavors. The fruitiness was balanced by light chocolate notes and a sharp, dry finish. This beer was described variously as having “the sensation of being dry and sweet at the same time” and “like drinking flowers.” It reminded me of chocolate covered cherries. Complex and delicious.
evening was a “purple flavored malt liquor” called Dragon Joose. This 9.9% ABV grape monstrosity is produced by United Brands International, the folks responsible for ChiquitaTM bananas. Wikipedia describes it as “berry inspired flavors with caffeine, ginseng and taurine” and “certified colors.” We described it as high-test grape soda. This is a drink designed to mess you up fast.
As with the other two of these ingredient focused events, we started off tasting an English Bitter to see how our highlighted ingredient plays out in an essentially balanced beer. This month it was Huvila ESB from Finland. A great example of the style, this beer starts with a solid bite of hop bitterness that fades into a luscious caramel and toffee malt. The yeast comes through as a subtle orange marmalade with none of the buttery character that is sometimes a part of this style. Cory paired this beer with a cheddary macaroni and cheese.
yeast character with the rich, bready wheat malt. This one was a crowd favorite. Next up was the Smokestack Series Saison from Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City. Historically a Belgian farmhouse ale intended to keep farmhands hydrated through the hot summer months, Saison is a light, effervescent, and refreshing beer with a unique yeasty profile. The Boulevard saison is true to style with a sharp dry finish and a tasty blend of black pepper spiciness with citrus and stone fruit esters. Paired with an aged gouda this was heaven.
From there we dove headlong into the world of true fermentation funkiness, the sour beers. We waded in cautiously with Rodenbach Classic Flanders Red Ale. Wine like, slightly sour, and redolent of cherries and other fruits, this beer received a mixed response. Some loved it. Some simply choked it down. Others thought it would make an excellent salad dressing. The pairing of this beer with pickled herring was the surprise of the night. The sum of the sours was less intense than either separate. It worked quite well. Next was Oro de Calabaza from Michigan’s Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. This is a Belgian Strong Golden ale that has been aged in barrels harboring wild yeast and funk producing bacteria. Strong barnyard and leather aromas and flavors dominated, but didn’t completely cover up the fruity and spicy belgian yeast character. This was the favorite beer of the night to many in attendance.
lambic beers. Intensely sour, cidery, fruity, leathery, and complex, these beers can be a shocker on first tasting. I was really curious to see how the group would respond to this one. I encouraged them to look beyond the sour to find the complexity hidden beneath. By the end of the five ounce pour, it was beginning to grow on many of the tasters. I was happy to see that no one dumped it out. One even commented, “I don’t hate this. I think it could grow on me.”