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.