25 Beers of Christmas '08, Day 1: De Koninck Winter Koninck

Brewery: De Koninck
Style: Winter Warmer
ABV: 6.5% Date
Poured: December 2008

One of the several bottles of Christmas or "Kerst" beers I brought back from Belgium. De Koninck is a brewery right in the middle of Antwerp and their standard De Koninck ale is the most popular beer in town. This beer is described as a deep amber ale. It also reads "Best by 6/12/2007". Oops.

Kind of an amber brown in the glass with a thin ivory head. Some floaties in the beer, doesn't look like yeast but more like coagulated protein. Not so appetizing! Fruity maltiness and an earthy, yeasty aroma. Prunes and baked apples with just a hint of oakiness.

Earthy and spicy in the mouth, a bitterness in the finish. Cinnamon and clove is prominent and a sweetness that hints at candy sugar used in the brewing process. More candy sugar in the finish, a mild bitterness accompanies the sweetness in the finish. Man, a lot of spice in this ale! Fruity, sweet and spicy pretty much sums it up.

You can taste a bit of oxidation and the unappetizing floaters demonstrate that this ale is past its prime but still not bad. Someday I hope to have a fresh taste.


Brouwerij De Koninck

Coaster: De Koninck

I was in Antwerp in early October which put me there right in the middle of their "Elephant Parade", a time when the city is decorated with elephant statues painted by local businesses and artists. The elephants are then auctioned off at the end of the parade to help preserve the endangered Asian Elephant.

De Koninck commemorated the event of their coasters, each one showing various elephants from around town. This is one of them.

Belgium Trip, Day 3: Still More Antwerp

Sunday we slept in a bit due to jet lag, grabbed some complementary breakfast and headed back downtown again. It had been drizzling on and off since Friday but it was still a manageable level of rainfall to handle while travelling by foot. Sunday…it really started to rain.We hit some of the Sunday morning flea markets and then ducked into the nearby Oud Arsenaal for some beers and some shelter. The Oud Arsenaal has been in business since 1924 and, like Quentin Mastijs, looks like very little has changed in the last 84 years. We grabbed some bench seating and checked out the menu. Not an enormous beer list but an impressively chosen one. But I ordered us bollekes of De Konninck to get started since Dave hadn’t had any yet. After that warm up, we delved deeper.

One of my objects during this trip was to get some Faro. This bar had Boon “Faro Pertotale” which was a faro mad eform half old lambic, half young lambic and sweetened with candy sugar. A true rarity, so I ordered a glass. Dave noticed that Rodenbach was the beer of the month and had never had it. Finding out that it was to be served with the traditional side of shrimp for no extra charge only sealed the decision.

The faro was tart and exhibited some light brett funk which was all softened a bit from the added sugar. The beer was quite still, nearly uncarbonated but offered a cider-like drinkability with a touch of finishing dryness. It was really good. The Rodenbach was Rodenbach, tart and acidic but refreshing and smooth at the same time.

And now a word about the privacy of Belgian toilets, especially in pubs and cafes. For men, there is little. Many times, the urinals are in plain site of either A) the women passing nearby to use the toilet or B) the other patrons sitting out in the bar. This is not to say that there is not at least partial obstruction but there are certainly many places where the doors to the WC remain wide open and the urinals are only partially obscured by the angle of the wall or a small half-door. It’s hard to explain but it’s certainly not the privacy of American standards!

Oud Arsenaal took this to extremes. The toilet was basically unisex. The toilets themselves are in tiny separate rooms within the larger restroom area, two are marked for ladies, one for men. But to get to the toilets what do you have to do? That’s right, walk right past the row of urinals! And that’s just what happened to me while I was downloading some urine. Three ladies walked right by toward the toilet. Startling wasn’t the word.

However, Oud Arsenaal was an inviting and cozy place, our server was quite helpful and friendly and outside of Kulminator, it may have been my favorite pub in Antwerp.

After a beer or three, the rain had let up so we headed further in toward the old city. Ducking in and out of shops, the rain had really started to soak us. So we ducked into a bar right next to the Cathedral called the Elfde Gebod (The Eleventh Commandment). This pub is filled with religious statues giving it the feel of an altar or the storage room for the nearby Cathedral. The roaring fireplace helped to take the chill out of our bones but we were looking for something to warm us from the inside too.

I ordered a Rochefort 10, a Trappist quadrupel that weighs in at 11% ABV. Boozy but lovely, it's a nice warmer on a dreary rainy day. Dave got another Trappist ale, the Westmalle Dubbel on draft.

Our server was a good guy named Kurt. He noticed what we were drinking and pointed out that St. Bernardus Tripel was available on draft. He brought us out a sample of the tripel so we could try it. That's a rarity where I live so I ordered the tripel next. Dave got the La Trappe Quadrupel, a beer from the Koningshoeven Trappist monastery in the Netherlands. Big malty beer at 10% alcohol.

After feeling considerably toasty, we thanked Kurt, he gave us his card for a new business venture called Belgium in a Box and we headed back out into the weather. I suggested that Dave needed to see Quentin Matsys so we took the three block walk.

Quentin Matsys was quite crowded this time around so we grabbed a couple seats at the bar. I ordered a De Koninck Tripel while Dave continued the high octane trip with a Kasteel Blond. Both were very good. Next we ordered a Gordon Finest Scotch Ale, mostly because we saw the amazing thistle glasses they served them in. But the ale was very good as well and gave us a rare chance to try a Belgian brewed Scotch ale.

We decided to move on and find some food since it was late afternoon but found we were not in any mood to keep fighting the rain. So we headed back to the hostel. On the way back I spotted a frituur so I doubled back and grabbed a couple orders of frites and brought them back to our room. We had frites and some Chimay Grand Cru cheese on crackers, washed it down with some Timmerman's Fruits de la Foret and some Lindemans Faro.

Antwerp had literally rained on our parade on Sunday but we were still able to get to three great pubs and make the best of a bad situation back at the room. We just tried our best to dry out our clothes, pack our bags and get ready for our drive out to Wallonie the next morning.

Belgium Trip, Day 1: Antwerp

It was a steady drizzle when I finally got off the train in Antwerp. That made the walk down the hostel a bit unpleasant but I was too tired to care. Larry the Dirty Hippy™ had decided to lay his seat back in my lap all the way to Brussels so sleep had been rare and sporadic. That coupled with an exceptionally long slow-moving line at Customs, lugging my bags around the airport and then the Brussels Centraal station had left me worn out upon my arrival in Antwerp. Instead of looking for a beer, I was looking for a bed.

I was early but the hostel let me drop off my bags even though my room wasn’t ready yet. This was just before 10:00 so it was expected. The clerk told me my room would be done by noon so I headed out to find something to occupy my time for a couple hours. I didn’t want to go to the old town just yet. I wanted to rest up and do that correctly. Instead, I headed for the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) to stroll around and see if I could find some good Brueghel and such to occupy my time. And I did.

I was hungry though and after an hour and a half decided to try to find t’ Pakhuis, a brewpub a few blocks from the museum. Sleep deprivation torpedoed those plans however as I had completely forgotten my maps at the hostel and my senses were such that I could not remember the address nor get my bearing in that part of town. But it was noon now so I decided to cut bait and head back to the hostel. A two-three hour nap and I would be ready to hit the cafes in earnest.

But upon my return, the room still wasn’t ready! I gave up on the nap and not wanting to make more trips back and forth, I packed up my supplies in the backpack and headed for the old city. I was just going to have to go for as long as I could and then turn in early. Some first night in Antwerp…

As I walked around the old town, I was surprised and disappointed to see no “frietkots” like I had seen on my previous visits. Frites had been my first choice for sustenance but I did not know which of the storefront “frituurs” made the frites in the traditional way. So I passed and went to a restaurant that specialized in “doner”. Imagine a gyro without the pita and a garlic sauce on the meat. It came with a small salad and some fries (not good) so that hit the spot in absence of other foods.

I got down near the Cathedral (beautiful as ever) and found myself in view of the Paters Vaetje. It's a small pub but what it lacks in physical size, it makes up for with an impressive beer list. I sat down and ordered a “bolleke”. I thought that my first beer in Antwerp should be Antwerp’s most popular beer.

In Pennsylvania, there is a phenomenon in bars where customers just ask for “a lager” and are brought a Yuengling without hesitation. In Antwerp, you call for a “bolleke” and you are brought a goblet of De Koninck with a small 25cl pour. It is the beer I drank most when I was here 11 years ago and one that I was looking forward to having when I came back. (I have had the bottled version back in the U.S. and it was extremely disappointing. De Koninck is a beer that needs to be served quite fresh to truly shine.)

De Koninck did not disappoint. It is an amber ale that clocks in at a 5% ABV which by Belgian standards is fairly puny. It is easy to dismiss this beer at first taste because it is quite light and there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on. But if you stick with it, you’ll start to pick up a lot of subtle flavors that battle for supremacy on the tongue. One sip will give you fruitiness, the next is crisp and clean. One sip reveals breadiness and earthy qualities and the next highlights a surprising hop profile. So simple but so complex. I had wondered if my memories had been playing tricks on me but this ale was as good as ever.

As I finished my second beer, (Cuvee de Trolls, a 7% ABV blonde ale seasoned with orange peel, brewed by Dubuisson) I could already feel the waves of sleep starting to come strong over me. I had a fair walk back to the hostel so I headed back, stopping off at a grocery store to pick up some cheap beer glasses, some Timmerman’s lambic and some snacks. I finally got settled into my clean room, had some Chimay cheese and bread with the Timmerman’s and turned in. It was only 19:30. Lame. Outside of a couple highlights, a disappointing first day in Belgium.

Belgium Trip Update

I finally have my airline ticket to Brussels so I have been paying a bit more attention to what's happening in the world of Belgian beer and getting some tips from other bloggers on what to look for when I go.

The photo I used for this post is courtesy of BoakandBailey.com. They have offered some of their beer photography for free use by other bloggers. This photo is of a neon Kasteel sign in Brussels.

This post over at BeerAdvocate.com eventually led me to find this hopeful article about the fate of Liefmans Brewery. Looks like the Duvel Moortgat brewery will be taking over brewing operations in preparation to make an offer to take over the Liefmans operation. Good news indeed!

Lew Bryson reports that Orval (one of my favorites) is a completely different animal when fresh. That hadn't occurred to me so I will have to make sure that I get a bottle when I get over there.

For the few of you who may be reading this and/or may actually have experience with this, I have a question. Is Westvleteren worth it? We will definitely be going to In de Vrede and sampling all the Westvleteren ales but I haven't decided if it's worth it to spend a bunch of time calling the monastery and spending another big chunk of time waiting in line at the monastery for my beer. Any thoughts are welcome.

I love De Koninck. One of the things I'm looking forward to most on this trip will be having another bolleke of fresh De Koninck in Antwerp. I have had bottled versions on this side of the Atlantic but in my experience the broad group of beers known as "Belgian Pale Ales/Ambers" do not travel well. At least not off of the continent. So it was nice to see that The Beer Tourist had a writeup of this fantastic ale from last September. Even nicer, I learned that the old unofficial brewery tap, Café Pelgrim, closed last March. The new unofficial brewery tap is Afspanning De Hand. I need to add that one to my list of stops in Antwerp.