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.
So far, 2015 has been a successful year for trying new beers. I’ve managed four different beers over the first four days of the year, and made a few trips around Belgium to stock up on some beers that will tide me over for the next few months! I have over 125 different beers currently sitting around, waiting for their turn. When couple with days where the beer of the day will come from a bar or a restaurant while traveling, this should easily last me through the first five months of the year!
Unfortunately, stocking up has left me a little behind in chronicling the first new beers of 2015, so I will try to catch up on the first week of 2015 now, January 1 through January 4, 2015.
Day 1: January 1, 2015
Diary entry:
New Year’s Day.
I spent New Year’s Eve wandering the streets of Athens, Greece, looking for decent Greek craft beer, since Beer Time was closed for the holiday. I found a new place, Athens Beer, located nearby to Syntagma Square at Nikis 20. A decent selection of beers from Greece as well as other locations around Europe. Nothing quite as great as some of the selections at Beer Time, but a nice selection from a number of Greek breweries was present to bring me through the evening. But I did wind up having some wine and cocktails after the midnight festivities, and never had a beer after midnight!
New Year’s Day I wandered not for beer, but for food, and spent quite a while just relaxing with some good Greek coffee at Yiasemi in Plaka. I was halfway back to home in the Netherlands, during a layover in Zurich International Airport, before I realized that I needed to make sure I had a beer to start the year off right.
The Beer:
Name: Ittinger Original
Style: Amber
Producer: Heineken
Alcohol content: 5.6%
Bottle size: Draft – 0.50l
Purchased from: Zurich International Airport, just outside gate A86
Day 2: January 2, 2015
Diary entry:
Why did I have to rush home so quickly from Athens? My day job is in the corporate accounting and controlling department of a major international manufacturing company, and January 2 was our annual “Closing of the Books Finance Festival” where I had to help ensure a smooth balancing of the books to end out fiscal year. No rest for the wicked!
The Beer:
Name: Hop met the Gijt
Style: IPA
Producer: Brouwerij de Natte Gijt, Weert, the Netherlands
Alcohol content: 6.5%
Bottle size: 0.33l
Purchased from: Part of a birthday package sent to me by my friend Mike, via beernavigator.com
Day 3: January 3, 2015
Diary entry:
Time to stock up!
Made the two-hour drive to Ghent, Belgium to visit De Hopduivel, one of my favorite bottle shops. Managed to pick up quite a nice selection of beers to use over the course of the next few weeks / months.
The plan was to then visit the Ghent Christmas Market, but between the excessive jangling coming from the trunk as I drove along the cobble-stoned streets, as well as the total lack of parking in the city center and the pouring rain, I decided instead to pay a revisit to De Struise, one of the best breweries in Belgium. Their tasting room is only open on Saturday afternoons, so I figured it was worth a visit.
The Beer:
Name: Over the Granel Rum Barrel Aged
Style: Saison
Producer: De Struise
Alcohol content: 17.0%
Bottle size: Draft 0.08l (Taster Glass)
Purchased from: De Struise Brouwers Tasting Room
A “Hoppy Sayson Rhum Ron Granel”. Barrels shipped from the Caribbean via sailing ship. You get so much of the rum barrel flavor in this one, but not in a way that removes the Saison flavor. A great balance.
Day 4: January 4, 2015
Diary entry:
Today is the final day of the Christmas Market season in Belgium, so I headed down to the small, picturesque town on Durbuy, who market themselves as the “Smallest Town in the World”. It was a cute town and Christmas Market. What did surprise me though was the presence of their own micro-brewery, La Ferme Au Chene, who produce the Marckloff Belgian Amber beer.
The Beer:
Name: Marckloff
Style: Amber
Producer: La Ferme au Chêne
Alcohol content: 6.5%
Bottle size: Draft 0.30l
Purchased from: La Ferme au Chêne
