Brother Dino and brothers and sisters,
I propose we call Dino: Brother Paul -The fake one LOL!!!
Chimay is also one of my favourites. It's a beer that is more reddish as color.
About that monk thing.
Hm-hm - here comes some beer lessons from Brother Paul the Bad one. So good, fake and (candidates?) ugly listen up.
In Belgium and all over the world you'll find: Abdijbier litterally translated meaning: Beer of an Abbey. Most of the time those beers are brewed by small or large industrial breweries and having nothing to do with an Abbey. In the best case the beer is brewed following an original (Abby) beer recepy.
Leffe is one of those highly popular Abbey-beers having nothing to do with an Abbey anymore. You also have Grimbergen, Affligem. But on those places there ARE actually more or less famous Abbeys. The beer is not brewed by those monks or in that Abbey but by an industrial brewery (I think it's the De Smedt brewery in Opwijk who makes Grimbergen and Affligem).
Beware -it's getting as complicate as the typename of Alembic guitars- there ARE small Abbeys (being NO TRAPPIST) who have their own beers but that is on really small local base. For instance in the Abbey of Val Dieu (Litterally: The Valley of God) they make an extremely good Abbey-beer, on very small base, only for sale in the neighboorhoud.
With a monk beer most of the time we mean beer made by Trappist monks. I don't remember the brand of those monks but (...) trappist were monks from the silent type.
A monk beer (a trappist) MUST be brewed by monks, it's the law.
There are only 6 trappist abbeys in the world, 5 of them are Belgian.
The REAL monk beers (trappist) are:
Westmalle (B)
Westvleteren (B)
Orval (B)
Rochefort (B)
Chimay (B)
La Trappe (Nl)
This last one -following may last info- lost the right to call it's beer Trappist because there is no longer a monk alive and involved in the brewing process.
Take in mind that the name of the beer is also the name of the place in Belgium where it's brewed. So if you can imagine that Belgium is about the dimensions of New York ... you can visit all of them in some days.
More easy: hop into a bar and start tasting. There are bars specialising (ever been to a bar with 320 types of Belgian beer???).
The monk beers -yes Brother Paul the fake one also CHIMAY- comes in different strenghts: 8 - 10 - 12? alcohol.
Most of the time it's clearly noted on the outside, we in Belgium we talk about a red, yellow or blue Rochefort = three strenghts of the beer.
What else could I say?
If you coming to Belgium, rent a car or a motorbike, and travel to Orval and its Abbey. It's a majestic place. It's very strange to see silence fill a space.
Outside there is a busy caf?.
BTW: Orval makes a very good cheese too!
You can also celebrate the 4th of july here in Leuven: I have a gig in a Irish pub that night. We start with irish beers and go further on something belgian afterwards!
Cheers brothers
Paul
PS: I think i'm gonna get Brother Paul (the fake one) over here: I have an Alembic, I'm from a brewery family and I know a place where I can rent a motorbike ... how's that sound? IN short: irrisitable!
I even can provide decent food for the baby coming along!
(Message edited by Palembic on March 25, 2003)
(Message edited by palembic on March 25, 2003)
