This post is a part of the 2015 New Beer Every Day Beer Diary Challenge, #ottbeerdiary. Over the course of 2015, I will be trying a new beer every day. Please read the background in the link above, and enjoy reading about the most recently tasted beers below. If you’d like to join the challenge as well, let me know in the comments below, and be sure to check out Grown-up Travel Guide and his #grownupbeerdiary, where Andy Higgs came up with the diary format in use below. You can catch up on all of our posts as part of the challenge under the tag ottbeerdiary.
Day 242: August 30, 2015
Diary entry:
I am currently in Belgium for the European Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference (#EBBC15 if you wish to follow along). For the next two days, I am participating in a tour of West Flanders’ beer culture with #VisitFlanders.
A bright and early wake up this morning for a 9AM bus departure. to Poperinge and the hop fields of West Flanders. After such great times over the past few days, took a while to say goodbye to everyone who was on other excursions, but the bus left relatively on time for the two-hour journey to our first stop, the Poperinge Hop Museum.
I’ve been to Poperinge a number of times, well, at least through Poperinge, yet never visited the museum. It’s a cool place to visit though! They take you through through an old hops storehouse / processing center, where you get a chance to see the whole process of hops, from growing to picking to drying to pressing. They also have a Belgian beer wall which, I must admit, is much more impressive than the beer wall in Brugge!
We had lunch and a beer at De Stadsschaal, the cafe attached to the museum, which also had a decent selection of local beers to taste. Here I had the Poperings Hommelbier by Brouwerij Van Eecke (Decent hops. Not as much as the fresh hop. But still nice,) and Poperings Nunnebier by Brouwerij Verhaeghe (Sour, butter and sweet. But refreshing overall.)
From here we moved on to De Plukker hop fields and brewery, where we saw in person the growing of the hops on an actual hop farm, and tried their beers, made from the hops grown in their own fields. These included Rookop (a hoppy dark brown beer. Bitter, and sweet. Some chocolate malt to stout it up,) and Tripel Plukker (Nice bitter and fruity flavors. 100% Organic, home grown pilgrim hops,) along with today’s beer of the day below.
It was off to In De Vrede, the cafe across from the Sint Sixtus Abdij in Westvleteren, where we had time to try the Trappist Westvleteren beers. For me, this was a stop I make pretty often, but for most of the group, it was quite exciting to watch them sample this elusive beer that many of them had been waiting for years to try. It’s always fun to watch people’s eyes as that first glass of dark brown Trappist is set down in front of them. I ordered an eight, but would up with a twelve and a blonde instead. Oh well!
And then off to my favorite brewery in Belgium, De Struise, where Carlo Grootaert greeted us and gave us a history of the brewery and their beers, as well as quite a few samples!
Havic, 4.1% Pale Lager – Clean and basic palate cleanser.
Obelis, 8% Hoppy Saison – Collaboration with CAP Brewery in Sweden, Nice drying bitterness. Spicy on the mouth.
T.W.O., 9% Wheat Wine – T.W.O. stands for Totally Wiped Out, a Cachaça barrel aged rendition of the Struise Witte. Fruity, yet no fruit involved.
Pannepot Special Reserve (Château Margaux BA) (2013), 10% Belgian Strong Dark Ale – Lovely! Fruity. Dark. Spicy. Delicious!
Black Damnation VIII – S.H.I.T., 12% Black IPA – Supreme Hoppy, Intensive Taste. A blend of Black Albert Russian Imperial Stout and Elliot Brew IPA. You can really taste the barrel in this one!
Cuvée Delphine Cask Strength, 13% Imperial Stout – Low carbonation cask version. Dark flavors. With the heat of the 13%.
Black Damnation V – Double Black (2015), 26% Imperial Stout – Not a typo…26%! Aged Black Albert, concentrated through the Eisbock process. You don’t need more than a taster of this one! Alcoholly, syrupy. Delightful. As a treat.
https://instagram.com/p/7A__XwkbTr/?taken-by=metsbwd
Luckily we had a bit of a bus ride before our next stop, which I was really looking forward to. Dinner at Eetcafe Rodenbach and then a tour at the Rodenbach Brewery. We didn’t get to the brewery until after 9PM, perhaps my latest ever brewery tour! I can’t even begin to put into words how amazing it is to be walking between the rows and rows of Foeders, full of aging Rodenbach red ale. It’s from these foeders that the magic of Rodenbach Grand Cru (my first ever sour beer), Rodenbach Vintage, Rodenbach Foederbier, and Rodenbach Caractère Rouge are blended.
And at that, quite enough for one evening. Off to Brugge, and a night at Hotel Casselbergh. We arrived too late for anything more than check-in and a little work in the room before falling into a deep, sound sleep.
The Beer:
Name: Keikoppenbier
Style: Belgian Blonde / Golden
Producer: Brouwerij De Plukker
Alcohol content: 6.1%
Bottle size: 0.15l pour from a 0.33l bottle
Purchased from: Provided to us on our tour of West Flanders with #VisitFlanders at #EBBC15
Keikoppenbier by Brouwerij De Plukker of Poperinge, Belgium. Nice hoppy flavor. Bitter, even a bit spicy. Good body. Very refreshing and drinkable. Made with English-style aroma hops; Kent Golding, Challenger, Pilgrim, Admiral, and Cascade, though future batches will cease to use admiral and use more Pilgrim.
The brewery is a 2011 addition to the hop fields, which we were visiting today. Joris Cambie is the hop farmer, and partnered up with Kris Langouche to add the brewery. All of their beers are made with their own hops, from the 11.5ha of hop fields, and there is hope to add their own malts in the future as well.
