Duvel

DUVEL



Origin: Belgium
Type: Golden Ale
Color: Golden yellow
Alcohol content: 8,5%
Recommended serving temperature: 10ºC/50ºF
Brewery: Duvel Moortgat
Webpage: http://www.duvel.be/#/int/en/home

When I decided to open this blog, I already had my heart set on what beer I wanted to write about for the first post.

There are two reasons that Duvel holds such a predominant place in my heart and my alcoholic memory.

The first is its specific flavor. Apparently this beer is made from yeast cultivated from the same source brought from Scotland by Albert Moortgat in 1918 (McEwans yeast) and hops of the Styrian Goldings and Saaz varieties. This, together with its over 90 day "bottle conditioning process", alternating 2 weeks in warm cellars and 6 weeks in cool cellars, provide it with a very distinct taste and smell.

Its webpage describes its lush fragrance as including citrus, apples, hops and yeast. Michael Jackson, meanwhile, in his "Greatest Beer Guide" (Dorling Kindersley, 2000), picks up orange zest, pear brandy and greeen apples with a light smooth, stony dryness.

Now, my palate is sadly less developed and my descriptive abilities are clearly inferior to Michael Jackson's. However, I will say I can make out the citrusy smells, not to toot my own horn. I think it is precisely this and the characteristically sparkly and champagney bubbles in Duvel (as in many of the stronger Belgian beers), that make this beer so tasty and easy to drink. It sometimes feels like you are drinking a nice, albeit slightly on the heavy side, glass of bubbly.

The second one is its 8,5ABV. The thing is, even though it has an 8,5ABV, you can barely taste the alcohol. It is perfectly rounded and hidden. It is deadly rounded and hidden. As it was put by a local man in one of its original tastings, it is a real devil of a beer -hence the name.

To give you an idea of just how sneaky (in a good way) this beer is, I will briefly explain how I came to try this beer and (some) of the events that ensued.

It was a calm, not rainy, afternoon in Gent a large number of years ago when a group of young men, on interrail (and thus tired, thirsty and hungry), sitting in the terrace of a pub, requested the waitress to recommend a strong blond ale from the area. This waitress strongly recommended Duvel, saying it was her favorite.

Several rounds later (5 in case anyone's counting, one less than the total amount of people in the group), two members of the group (the person writing this among them) ran into each other in the bathroom of the same pub. They had already had moderate problems going up the stairs to the bathroom, but after commenting on a few messages left on the wall of the stall, they decided to contravene the group's consensus and order a last round.

It appears that the trip back to our hostel was a bit of an odessey, involving several cabbies justifiably refusing to take us, pants falling prey to gravity, and some other poor cabby had his own door uhm... repainted...

I'm saying apparently because the last thing I remember is the message on the stall, which still makes me weary: Pandas will rule the world.

Only thing left is to pump them full of Duvel to make sure that never happens.