Tournay Noire

Much better this one, it's a vast improvement on the blonde from the same brewery. The key thing being it actually tastes of something. Living up to its name it is very dark almost black. It has the look of a stout about it. On tasting it has a lot in common with a stout, almost like a stout light. Now my dislike for stouts is well known but I was rather happy with this one. It wasn't quite as intense as most stouts and quite frankly I was just happy to drink a beer that had flavour.

2.5 out of 5

Tournay Blonde

I like blonde beer, it's my favourite. I like that it's not too heavy, I like it when it's really hoppy, I like the colour. And so I was excited to have this blonde Belgian beer. It was an utter disappointment. It was like having a fizzy water. Just didn't really have any flavour.

1.5 out of 5

Corsendonk Pater

I'm in the final furlong, the big push, the last 50. I know I haven't blogged about every beer but sometimes work and life gets in the way. I have decided to put the effort in and really go for it. I want to be finished by Christmas. To that end I have taken up going for a beer straight after work at least twice a week.  

So after work I had this brown Belgian abbey beer and I was highly impressed. It was rich with good flavour, malty and slightly sweet, a real delight. I got a bit carried away and drank the beer before I took a photo, it was a deep dark beer in case you are wondering. 

3.5 out of 5

Chimay White

I didn't actually order this beer but the barman stamped my book first in the wrong place and so I had this one instead of the one I had ordered. It is a very nice beer. A Belgian tripel brewed by some Trappist monks. It has a lovely almost warm flavour, it really helped with being at the end of a long week at work. 

 While having this I was chatting to a fellow passport booker. He was well into his session and decided to start drinking Deus, the £35 a bottle champagne beer from the list which I am saving as a final treat. He decided he so liked the first one he should have another bottle. An expensive night for him. 

4 out of 5. 

Slaapmutske Bruin

I like the name of this type if beer, Slaapmutske, it rolls off the tounge nicely. I've had various brews from this range before and the brown version is a nice example of a Belgian brown beer without being super strong, it's only 6%. It's go a good flavour, quite sweet. 

Rodenbach Grand Cru

When I order this the bar staff thoroughly approve telling me it's a great beer. On pouring it's quite dark  and doesn't really give any head. The first taste brings a big surprise, it's a hit of vinegary sourness. Another sour beer. I find with sour beers at first I hate them, about a third of the way through I start to like them. I think a lot of it is getting over the initial shock to the system and after that they are palatable. It was the same with the Rodenbach it got better as it went on.

2.5 out of 5. 

Adriaen Brouwer Dark Gold

I'm informed by the barman, Ian, that he has never sold a bottle of this beer before. Is that a good thing? I think probably not. 

The bottle depicts Belgian artist Adriaen Brouwer who was apparently famous for doing paintings of people after having a fair few and engaged in bedauchery.

The beer itself is very pleasant. A well balanced strong dark Belgian style beer, I can't really imagine why it doesn't sell more in the vaults. It's by no means a brilliant beer but it's well above average. 

3.5 out of  5. 

Goller Rauchbier

Rauchbier, it's not a good thing for me to see on the list but at least there is only one more left after this one. This one comes in a very nice bottle, I really like that pop cap style you get on some beers. The beer is quite dark and has a smokey flavour but is not as strong as the previous smoked beers I have tried. Overall it was ok if you like that kind of thing.

While having this beer I got to witness a grand event, the decorating of the pub with new hop vines. As I walked in the hop vines were piled up and I got tk watch the quite comedic attempts of the owner mike with the help of a very tall guy trying to mount these above the bar. After some time and much trial and error they managed this feet but left the rest of the vines to the employees rather than the owner to put up. 

2 out of 5

Kellerbier

The first week back at work after the summer holidays is a tough one, and by Friday I was absolutely gasping for a beer. Straight off the train and to the post office vaults it was. The beer I had was the Anno 1417 Kellerbier. Like in most things in life context is very important with beer and I must say that can't remember enjoying a beer more. A nice full flavoured refreshing larger straight after work, it was brilliant. I think I drank it in about 5 minutes such was my enthusiasm for it. Looking back the beer was a very nice larger but not as special as it seemed in the moment.

3.5 out of 5

Palm special

This is an Amber Belgian beer and it claims to be "special". All I can say is that it's not really special. It is distinctly average, it lacks a bit of flavour but has a good aroma. The beer itself comes in a smaller than usual bottle which is a bit disappointing. Belgium is. Small country which seems to produce a truly staggering variety if beer, I don't see how there can be a market for something so indistinct within such a crowded market place but I guess that's why I only got a C at AS level economics. 

2.5 out of 5

Gentse Strop

This beer is a Belgian pale ale from Ghent.  It's name is something to do with the citizens of a suburb of Ghent who lead an uprising against an Emporer. These people got called noose bearers and this gives rise to the name of the beer. 

The beer itself is nice. It has a light fizzy taste and is quite warm in the mouth. I don't think it will be my go to Belgian beer but it's a nice relaxing refreshing tasting beer that doesn't blow your socks off like some Belgian beers. 3 out of 5

Achel Bruin

More Trappist beer this time from Achel. It sometimes seems like every other beer I have has been brewed by a monk. This was typical and unexciting I wasn't a great fan but it wasn't a bad beer. 2.5 out of 5. 

La Biere Du Demon

I gave my other half the choice of my final beer of this particular trip to the pub and she chose the beer of the demon. It proclaims itself to be "Biere blonde la plus forte du monde". Now my French is pretty ropey but I think that means blonde beer which is the strongest in the world. It certainly is strong weighing in at a whopping 12%. 

I actually very much enjoyed it. I have had the ultra strong beers made by freeze distillation such as tactical nuclear penguin from brew dog. I find these tend to taste less like beer and more like port. The demon beer had a flavour that gave a hint of that kind of taste, I found it nice and very drinkable for something so strong. I was surprised to see it only getting a 2.5 on untpped, I thought it was much better than that. 3.5 out of 5. 

Ename Dubbel

Another beer from the Ename brewery was my follow up to the achingly sour beer I had just had. There isn't a lot to says out its beer, the Ename brewery seems to produce perfectly fine examples of typical Belgian beer. This is a good example of a Belgian Dubbel, without ever being special in any way.  3 out of 5. 

Cantillion 100% Gueze

After having brunch at Urban coffee in the jewellery quarter I headed into the city centre to make the most of the last few days of the summer holiday. This meant a stop at the post office vaults. Unfortunately my phone had run out of battery so no photos of the ones I had that day. First up was a sour beer from Belgium. I have no truck with sour beer I think it just tastes a bit gone off. This beer was especially sour, the first mouthful, was like sucking on a beery lemon. It did get better as I drank more and I became more used to the flavour, but overall I'm not a fan, 1.5 out of 5

Kasteel Rouge

No photo of this one. I had it while I had some friends up to watch the birmingham bears play some t20. We met up in the post office vaults before heading to the game. One of the beers j had that day was the Kasteel Rouge. I ordered it without a thought and ended up drinking a berry flavoured beer in front of my mates, very manly. It was ok not too bad, I'm looking at you floris beers, but also nothing write home about. 2 out of 5. 

St Bernabus Abt 12

When I spoke to Kieth, the man who has finished the 200 beers, he waxed lyrical about this as a beer. He told me it is basically the same beer as  Westvleteren XII. Westvleteren XII is supposed to be the best beer in the world but is also rather rare, they do have it in the Post Office Vaults but it is £30 a bottle. This makes the St Bernabus a real bargain at £5 even if it is only a pale imitator of the best beer in the world.

What strikes me first is how happy the monk, presumably the eponymous St Bernadus, on the bottle looks. The beer is very dark and thick and has a good deep complex taste. It's a party in my mouth of the different flavours that go into a beer, it's quite intense. It's also very strong, 10%, as benefits a quadruple ale. It left me feeling a little bit pissed, I hadn't had any lunch. So I went off home for an afternoon nap after having this. 4 out of 5. 

Poperings Hommel Beer

This beer goes into the category of the also rans. It's not a bad beer but it doesn't really have anything to set it apart from the large crowd of beers that there are. I would rate it as average in almost every way and I wouldn't recommend anyone going any distance for one. 2.5 out of 5. 

Ename Blonde

Following in from the other Ename beers I had had earlier after the direction of a past champion I went for the blonde version. Ian the current barman said he thought this was the best of the beers from this brewery. It is quite a standard Belgian blonde beer. It's nice but doesn't really have anything to put it above anything else. 3 out of 5. 

Chimay Red

More Trappist beer!

The good monks of Chimay make beer that comes in different coloured bottles. The red, or rouge, is the least strong of these. 

I had this beer as when I asked for a beer du demon the bar maid couldn't find it and started to look a bit flustered at the people waiting behind me. The post office vaults doesn't seem to have a system for putting beers into the fridges and this can result in a long wait for a beer.

The beer itself was nice, a fairly standard dubbel style beer with a kind of rich fruity sweetness going on. Drinkable but not special, although I was glad it was only 7% as some if these Belgian beers can really bowl me over when they push into double figures. 3.5 out of 5. 

I also learned that there may be plans afoot to move the post office vaults 3 doors down the road. Exciting if this is true. 

Monks Stout

It's no secret that I don't like stout but if it's in the book then I have to drink it. The best I can say about this beer is that it is very stouty. It's like they turned up the stout to 11. I didn't like it at all. Burnt, that's what it tastes of. 1 out of 5. 

Gregorius Trappist

Another day another Trappist beer, those monks just love brewing. This one comes from a small relatively new Trappist brewery in Austria. Following on from the St Sebastien this one come in at over £8 and I don't even get a cool ceramic bottle to keep, oh well. 

The beer itself is very dark and packs a lot of punch. It's full of flavour, malty and very sweet, much sweeter than most beer I have had. A quick glance at the ingredients reveals the reason for this sweetness, those crafty monks have added honey to the mix. Overall I enjoyed this beer and actually found the sweetness nice, it did however start to cloy a little towards the end. 3.5 out of 5. 

Ename tripel and cuvée

I was in the post office vaults last Monday, and when I ordered my drink  the barman informed me that I was in the presence of greatness and introduced me to Kieth, one of the 3 people to have finished the 200 beers. I had a chat to him and he informed me that he thought the Ename beers were a good drink. So I had two of them.

First up, the tripel. 

I can say that this lived up to Kieth's promise and was a very likeable beer. Slightly sweet and very warm in the mouth it went down very nicely. 3.5 out of 5. 

Next up the Cuvée 

It has a slightly pink colour and I was fearing another berry flavoured nightmare. It proved to be ok but lacked a real in depth flavour. It was very light and fizzy. No where near as good as the tripel. 2.5 out of 5

St Sebastian Grand Cru

Sometimes I think the whole beer passport is just a way to sell me rubbish, such as the entire Floris range of beers, and very expensive beers. This beer comes in a a hefty £11.50, but hell I'm probably only ever going to have it once.

It comes in a very distinctive ceramic bottle and for my £11.50 it is Big bottle coming in at 500 ml rather than the normal 330 ml so it's practically a bargin.

The beer itself is very nice. It's a golden beer with a rich deep flavour. It's quite warm in the mouth but is pleasant and refreshing as well as having a nice complex flavour. Having finished the beer my other half decides to retain the bottle and put it to use in the kitchen holding olive oil. Maybe the £11.50 was a bargin. 4 out of 5. 

Brekles brown

I'm a really big fan of American beer. I love a hoppy American style IPA, plenty of flavour, easy drinking on a sunny afternoon. many people consider one of the quintessential American beers to be the Anchor Steam Beer. I've tried it a number of times and find it incredibly bland. This comes from the same brewers and I hope it will be a step up.

All I can say is that it is a very middle of the road brown beer. Not bad, certainly inoffensive, but with nothing really to recommend it. 2 out of 5

Augistiner Dunkel

Germany is famous for beer. When I think of Germany it's heavy set set men in leather leggings quaffing larger. I've never been to Munich but I really hope that's what it's like. This beer comes all the way from Munich. It's very dark, so doesn't fit into my Munich dream, and has a bit too much of that kind of stouty flavour that I don't like. It's alright but tastes a little bit burnt for my liking. 2.5 out of 5

Schelentera Marzen

After watching some nutter come into the pub, shout widely about the devil and threaten to disembowel one of the other patrons I was in need of a stiff drink. Thankfully of all the people in the pub the small barmaid managed to get the nutter to leave and I was given the Schelentera Marzen.

Its a smoked beer from Germany and it tastes and smell vaguely of smoky bacon flavoured crisps. On the face of it this is a good thing. However 2 thirds of a way into a bottle I was struggling. I'm just not a fan of smoked beer. 2 out of 5

Slaapmustske Blonde

I have drank a fair few if the Slaapmutske beers and have enjoyed them all, especially the dry hopped larger. This is there blonde beer and it's perfectly fine. It tastes exactly as I would expect a Belgian blonde beer to taste. I can't recommend it but it's a fair beer. 

3 out of 5. 

Atkien Landbier Dunkel

One of the issues for the Post Office Vaults in running the beer passport seems to be the issue of guaranteeing supply. On more than one occasion I have been told that a beer isn't in stock, or that it has been replaced by another beer. This seems to be reasonably common with the German beers, and one of the ones I looked to have has been replaced by a landbier Dunkel. I've had this before when trying random beers in Pure Bar but it's not a bad beer and so I was happy to have it again.

The beer is a deep dark colour with a very intense malty flavour, it also gets extra kudos for its chunky stein style glass and pop top on the bottle.

3.5 out of 5

Orval

The start of a half term holiday heralds a chance to really amp up the drinking, and so on a Friday after work it was straight to the post office vaults for an Orval.

Orval is another Trappist beer, brewed by some monks in Belgium. The beer has a very distinctive and lovely skittle shaped bottle and comes in at 6.2%, pretty weak for a Trappist beer. I don't think this is a bad thing as when we are getting up into double figures these beers have a real tendency to kick my ass. The beer itself is very, very nice, it has quite a distinctive flavour and is quite sweet but I really like it.

4.5 out of 5

XX bitter

A bit of a blast from the past as I drunk this one quite a while ago. 

I nipped in to take this one on during a Saturday lunchtime while my other half was out shopping. The pub was unusually busy and I ended up standing at the bar. 

My beer was a Belgian XX bitter. Now tou don't see many things marketing themselves as double X, it seems to be triple X but I guess this beer keeps it's clothes on.

The beer itself is alright but as the name suggets is very bitter. Not always a bad thing but here there is just something that puts me off a little. 

2 out of 5

Asterie

A long, boring and hot day at work deserves  a beer and so I stopped in at the post office vaults on the way home. Today's offering was Asterie a Belgian wheat beer. My first taste mostly revealed that it's fizzy, very very fizzy. I find it to be a little light weight but it does have a pleasing aftertaste, kind of corriander and orange thing going on. Overall a nice refreshing beer that I will mostly remember for being very very fizzy. 

3 out of 5

Franziskaner

So this is kind of the best time of the year to be a teacher, the pressure is a little bit off as the exam classes are on study leave, this gives me more freedom to go for a relaxing beer after work. And that is exactly what I did today. They didn't have my first choice in stock soi settled for a Franzikaner. This is a fairly standard German wheat beer and you see it around. It's very nice though, has a sweet fruity flavour, lots of banana and caramel going on. A lively refreshing cool drink after a day at work. 3.5 out of 5. 

Schneider Weisse Unser Aventinus (Tap 6)

So my trip through the German Weisse beers continues with this offering, the Unser Aventinus. It comes with quite a reputation with Toby the barman declaring it one of his favourites. It doesn't disappoint. It's a dark wheat beer in the doppelbock style and tastes of fruit and malt and is warm and  delicious all the way through drinking. It's a delight. As I finish it the bar man tells me if I enjoyed it I should try the eisbock version of the same beer, a kind of freeze distilled super version. That beer comes in at 12% so will have to wait for a non work night.

4.5 out of 5

Pietra Colomba

I spent my weekend in Oxfordshire playing ridiculous non sports, drinking and getting baned from KFC.  The non sports I took part in were footgolf and Aunt Sally. Both are ridiculous and I was was fully rubbish at both of them.

The beer I am writing about at the moment is a Colomba by Pietra and I had this while waiting for a train to transport me to the exotic world of footgolf. Now I have mentioned that I have been enjoying my wheat beer recently and this seems to be what the French have to offer on that front. Now Beer isn't the first thing I think of when France is mentioned, it's more miserable people who shrug and 'allo 'allo and wine, the French bloody love wine. Having drunk this I can see why the French get through a lot of wine, and coffee they love that aswel, it's incredibly bland. It's completely non offensive but just really lacks anything that I would consider to be flavour. If it was this or some chateauneuf du pape, I'd take the wine. 1.5 out of 5

In addition it's congratulations to my friends Jon and Michelle on the birth of their daughter. I hope this doesn't slow down Jon's own beer challenge of collecting 1000 different beer bottle caps.

Moa Marlborough

One week into a new term and I need nothing more than to go for a beer Friday after work. So it's straight off the train to the post office vaults. I try to order a kolsch by Heller but am told they are proving hard to get hold of so it has been replaced by a Moa methode pilsner all the way from New Zealand. This beer is distinctly ok, nothing special in any way and actually had quite a bitter up front taste that has no place in a pilsner.  The bottle declares two accolades, that it is the beer of Olympians, no wonder New Zealand don't win many golds they are all too pissed, and that it won a gold medal at the Asia beer awards 2011. Clearly 2011 not a marquee year for Asian beer. 

It's completely standard. 1.5 out of 5. 

Schneider Weisse Original (Tap 7)

Now I said in an earlier post that I had been drinking a lot of wheat beer recently and this is my first entry on the blog about wheat beer. Before embarking on my current beer odyssey I was a very occasional wheat beer drinker. It mostly consisted of a pint of Hoegarden if it was on tap, or maybe a glass of Blue Moon with a slice of orange (!?) in it.

I can certainly say that I have enjoyed dipping my toe into the wider variety of wheat beer available out there and it all stated here with a Schnider Weisse Original. As a beer it was light, easy drinking with a nice fruity flavour, I especially got a taste of banana coming through. Overall a very nice easy drinking beer that I could be happy sipping over a long time sat in the sun listening to some oompah music wishing I had the legs to pull off lederhosen. 3.5 out of 5.

Jever Pilsner

Recently I've been drinking a lot of German beer, and I like it. I have found a particular affinity for wheat beer. Unfortunately this isn't a wheat beer it's a pilsner. 

Now I used to primarily drink larger, I went through a phase of drinking in a rough pub in Birmingham city centre where the ale was ropey at best so I mostly drank Peroni. Pilsners and largers in general, there is probably some distinction that I don't know about between the two, are alright but they just don't light my fire. This is a perfectly fine example of a larger, it's crisp, fresh and cool. I just can't get excited about it. 2.5 out of 5. 

Paulaner Salvator

When I went to the bar to order this the barman told me the tale of this beer. Apparently it used to be brewed by monks, and they liked drinking it so much that that just got wasted on it all the time and didn't do any of their monk duties. The pope got wind of this and demanded that a sample be sent to him to judge whether this was a good use of the monks time. So they shipped a crate to him across the alps, fortunately for the monks they did it during the summer and it was hot on the journey. By the time the beer had got to the Pope it was well past its best and the Pope declared it was fit for the monks as drinking it was a more of a punishment than anything else. Whether this is true or whether the barman made it up I have no idea, I can't see anything about it on the Paulaner website.

Anyway the beer itself is a dark dobbelbock style beer and I found it to be very nice.Its quite malty and not too overpowering. All in all its certainly worth a try and a nice beer. 4 out of 5.

Aecht Schlenkerla Doppelbock

So here is a list of things that I like that taste of smoke:

Smoked bacon

Smoked mackerel

Smokey bacon flavoured crisps

Something that I have found that I certainly don't like is smoked beer. This brewery, http://www.schlenkerla.de/rauchbier/beschreibunge.html, make smoke flavoured beer. They do it by some German trickery which involves drying the malt using smoke then aging it in smoked oak barrels. The result is certainly smokey. When I first tasted it I wasn't expecting it, I was pretty drunk and my mother had been to the bar so I wasn't sure what I was getting, but the smokey flavour overwhelms everything else and is a real shock. At first I thought "this is amazing" it's different and full of an unusual flavour but still beer. By the time I was half way through I was struggling, by the time I was three quarters of the way through I felt like I was drinking from an ash tray. I'm glad I tried it, I can understand why people love it, it's just too smokey for me. 2 out of 5.

Oud Beersel Framboise

Now this beer was consumed during a weekend when I had some friends, including the elder of my two brothers, visiting to watch England crush Wales in the six nations. My brother went off to the bar and came back with a raspberry flavoured lambic beer. Now he thinks he is being funny as I have stated numerous times my distaste for fruit flavoured beer. Unfortunately for him what I don't like is sweet fruit flavoured beer, when we have a sour lambic style beer like this one the fruit flavour is quite nice and helps to take the edge off the sourness. This one slipped down quite nicely and didn't get the reaction my brother anticipated. 2.5 out of 5.

Mout & Mocca

So I haven't posted for ages, work has been getting on top of me and plus I have recently got engaged. Now being engaged mostly means that my other half does lots of stuff but I also get dragged into the wedding planning.

This all hasn't stopped my drinking and the blog lies a long way behind the actual beer count, I broke through the 100 mark this week. The plan is to try and put up one post a day looking back at the beers I have drunk.

Now this beer from the De Molen brewery, a Dutch brewery, Is a coffee flavoured imperial stout coming in at a hefty 11.6%. I enjoyed this beer in the company of my mother who was up visiting for the weekend. My mother shares a strange connection to the Post Office Vaults, she is a season ticket holder at the mighty Bath rugby club and she has made good friends with the person she sits next to. From a complete fluke the son of my mother's friend, Toby, is now a barman at the POV.

This meant that rather than meet my mother in Baccus, where she likes to wait after getting off the train, she could go to the POV and not feel too strange to be the only wine drinking woman in the place.

Anyway on a Sunday we had been to the excellent Pure Bar and Kitchen for lunch and then made our way to the POV for a few more drinks. I had quite a few, which I will detail later, and ended with this. I hated it. Firstly I don't like stouts, secondly I don't like coffee. This beer basically embodied everything I don't like. It is the first and so far only beer in the lists haven't finished. I can understand why people would like it. It's thick, syrupy, with a very strong flavour. Unfortunately it's the opposite end of the beer spectrum to my taste. 1 out of 5