10 cheers to beer: the most interesting beers to pack into your itinerary
From Brewmeister’s 65 per cent Armageddon to Belgium’s Kriek Boon and a Key Lime Pie ale from Michigan, ten beers worth travelling for.
Beer doesn’t need an excuse, beer could be your excuse… To put on your travel shoes. We went barhopping across the planet, to bring to you ten of the most interesting beers, to pack into your itinerary.
01 Armageddon
At 65 per cent alcohol by volume, this is the world’s strongest beer, beaten only by the hard-to-lay-your-hands-on Snake Venom, also from the same brewery. Speyside-based Scottish brewers Brewmeister use rock-filtered spring water to create this knockout ale. Caution: This one’s not for the faint of heart!
02 Affligem Tripel
The menu card at Brasserie Appelmans, which has one of the best bars in Antwerp, Belgium, beckons you to try this brew. Affligem Tripel uses a recipe that dates back to the middle ages, and an in-house yeast that causes the beer to referment once in the bottle, giving you a layered beer. So when you place your order, you get the pint with two glasses. You swirl your bottle, pour about 70 per cent of it into the larger glass, and the rest into the smaller glass. The curious thing is the stark difference in colour and clarity in both glasses. While the ale in the larger glass is lighter and fresher, the one in the smaller is fuller and more flavourful. Alternate your sips to get the full flavour. Or refresh yourself with the larger one and then down the smaller, more concentrated bit to enjoy the aftertaste.
03 Schneider Weiss
Give Oktoberfest a rest. Take a detour into Kelheim, Germany, to try out what one of the oldest wheat beer breweries in the world is turning out. Full, flavourful and fresh, Schneider Weiss Original has notes of nutmeg, apple and clove. Refreshing with the very first sip, it leaves behind a sour aftertaste. The brewery was once owned by the king of Bavaria, till he misjudged the real potential of the business. Deciding that wheat beer had been a mere fad, he decided to get rid of the enterprise and sold it to the Weisse family, the sixth generation of which runs it now.
04 Black Jesus
The Great Heck Brewery, in Yorkshire, UK, used American hops and German roasted malt to create an India Pale Ale. A tongue-in-cheek brew in every way possible—the goth name, the mix of dark fruits and coffee-chocolate, a zesty, unusual flavour, and a packaging that won it the World’s Best Label of 2014, at the World Beer Awards. Well balanced, and worth stopping by at the brewery for.
05 Tongerlo Blond
Because B is for Belgian Beer. Because this Belgian brewery, Haacht, produces the World’s Best Beer. And because Tongerlo Blond is also the World’s Best Pale Beer. Light and fresh as beers go. And sweet and delectable as blond beers go. Duvel and Chimay may be the most popular ones to come out of Belgium, but this one certainly is kicking their butt!
06 Redoak Special Reserve
A craft beer, served from a beer boutique, first brewed by a 14-year-old, and now winner of the World’s Best Flavoured Beer. Oh yes, we’re digging this. Triple-fermented, oak-matured, with 12 per cent alcohol by volume, and with notes ranging from toffee and caramel to fruity, spicy, smoky and peppery... Bring it on, Mate!
07 Zlaty Bazant
The national beer of Slovakia is much like its more popular cousin Pilsner Urquell, which is more popular across the Czech Republic, only lighter and fresher. There’s something about the beer that you wouldn’t mind a chilled glass on a cold, winter’s day, either. Every restaurant, every pub across Slovakia serves it, as do those in the Czech Republic. Oh, and it’s smooth as smooth can get.
08 Morimoto Soba Ale
Japanese restaurateur Masaharu Morimoto created a buckwheat beer. Like liquid soba noodles. With a nutty flavour. And fizz.
09 Key Lime Pie
The dash of lime in your brew is old hat. This award-winning ale, from Shorts Brewing Company, Michigan, USA, is made of fresh limes, milk sugar, graham crackers and marshmallow fluff. Talk about a pudding in my pint!
10 Kriek Boon
Here’s one that gives popping the cherry another angle! The Belga Queen, in Ghent, Belgium (again!) serves a lambic beer with sour Morello cherries. It’s strong, it’s zesty, it’s sour and—no, don’t let the cherries and pretty red colour fool you—it hits you like a hurricane!
Man fact: Ever peer into your beer glass and watched the coaster below distort? No, you’re not drunk. It’s called anamorphosis. In the Middle Ages, in Europe, pubs used this to show, in secret, otherwise prohibited pictures, usually erotica, to their customers. How about some olden porn! (Courtesy: Gruut Brewery, Ghent)
From the March 2015 issue of FHM India.
Spotted a mistake, or your photo used without permission? Report a correction
in your inbox