LA TRAPPE ISID'OR
Origin: The Netherlands
Type: Trappist beer
Color: Reddish brown
Alcohol content: 7,5%
Recommended serving temperature: 12ºC/54ºF
Brewery: Abdij O.B.V. Koningshoeven
Webpage: http://www.latrappe.nl/content.asp?m=M7&s=P22&l=EN
For my first post on trappist beers, I have decided to choose a somewhat special beer. This is not to say that the rest of the beers I have included or will include in this blog are not special, they all are, at least to me, that is why they are here, but this beer is objectively special.
To start with, La Trappe is the only trappist beer made in the Netherlands.
As you may know, there are seven trappist beers, six of which are made in Belgium (Orval, Achel, Rochefort, Chimay, Westmalle and Westvleteren), and the seventh in the Netherlands (La Trappe). The main requirement to become an "Authentic Trappist Beer", as the designation goes, is to be produced by trappist monks, within the monastery and purely as a means of subsistance (that is, not for profit) of the monks.
But to add to the specialty of being the only trappist beer produced in the Netherlands, it is also a special edition within the varieties La Trappe produces, brewed to honor the creator of the Koningshoeven beers, Isidorus Laaber.
I first tried this beer in Madrid, in the great Cervecería L'Europe, somewhere around October-November (I think) 2009. I was invited to a promotional event there by a friend, sponsored (you guessed it) by La Trappe. The aim was for the distributor to present La Trappe Isid'or to retailers and other prospective clients, but thanks to destiny's whimsical and pleasuring hand, I found myself there along with another maybe hundred people.
I had just gotten off work quite stressed, and I must confess the idea of having a nice strong La Trappe Quadrupel was especially appealing to me at that point. So I got to L'Europe, found the draft with the Quadrupel and poored away until it finished (let me just calm people by saying I was not the only one drinking from that particular tap, so this post still has some credibility as to its opinions). It was only at this point when La Trappe's agent recommended we try a new variety, a special edition they had brought over especially to promote and celebrate their anniversary.
It was then that I discovered a softer, creamier variety of La Trappe (I am a firm lover of the Tripel and the Quadrupel), a breath of fresh air for an already slightly tipsy person.
This beer has a creamy tasty foam, very pleasureful and not biting at all, and an almost sweet (the webpage says it has hints of caramel, it could very well be), not really bitter taste, which makes it ideal, even to drink leisurely on an empty stomach. And by that I do not mean you will not feel it -you will-, it'll just go down seamlessly, like you are being nourished with every sip and it will sit calmly in your tummy (I personally think it's the soft innocent bubbles it has, but what do I know), taking your hunger away as it fills you with a warm happy feeling.
Anyway, after such a description, I do not think I need to tell you that I was one of the last persons to leave L'Europe, and I left with my tummy full but without having had very much to eat (a shame, because L'Europe has a fantastic mix of sausages I normally do not deprive myself of). This made for some really dantesque spectacles on the street on the part of my friend and I, struggling to trade each other the beers we had been presented with in our gift bag without falling on our asses in the middle of the sidewalk, and holding on for that purpose to trees thinner than a twig with little success.
I suppose all that is part of the experience of the Isid'or and one of the reasons this beer has made its way into my heart and alcoholic memory. And as I said, and I can't stress this enough, it is a warm and pleasant one.
Type: Trappist beer
Color: Reddish brown
Alcohol content: 7,5%
Recommended serving temperature: 12ºC/54ºF
Brewery: Abdij O.B.V. Koningshoeven
Webpage: http://www.latrappe.nl/content.asp?m=M7&s=P22&l=EN
For my first post on trappist beers, I have decided to choose a somewhat special beer. This is not to say that the rest of the beers I have included or will include in this blog are not special, they all are, at least to me, that is why they are here, but this beer is objectively special.
To start with, La Trappe is the only trappist beer made in the Netherlands.
As you may know, there are seven trappist beers, six of which are made in Belgium (Orval, Achel, Rochefort, Chimay, Westmalle and Westvleteren), and the seventh in the Netherlands (La Trappe). The main requirement to become an "Authentic Trappist Beer", as the designation goes, is to be produced by trappist monks, within the monastery and purely as a means of subsistance (that is, not for profit) of the monks.
But to add to the specialty of being the only trappist beer produced in the Netherlands, it is also a special edition within the varieties La Trappe produces, brewed to honor the creator of the Koningshoeven beers, Isidorus Laaber.
I first tried this beer in Madrid, in the great Cervecería L'Europe, somewhere around October-November (I think) 2009. I was invited to a promotional event there by a friend, sponsored (you guessed it) by La Trappe. The aim was for the distributor to present La Trappe Isid'or to retailers and other prospective clients, but thanks to destiny's whimsical and pleasuring hand, I found myself there along with another maybe hundred people.
I had just gotten off work quite stressed, and I must confess the idea of having a nice strong La Trappe Quadrupel was especially appealing to me at that point. So I got to L'Europe, found the draft with the Quadrupel and poored away until it finished (let me just calm people by saying I was not the only one drinking from that particular tap, so this post still has some credibility as to its opinions). It was only at this point when La Trappe's agent recommended we try a new variety, a special edition they had brought over especially to promote and celebrate their anniversary.
It was then that I discovered a softer, creamier variety of La Trappe (I am a firm lover of the Tripel and the Quadrupel), a breath of fresh air for an already slightly tipsy person.
This beer has a creamy tasty foam, very pleasureful and not biting at all, and an almost sweet (the webpage says it has hints of caramel, it could very well be), not really bitter taste, which makes it ideal, even to drink leisurely on an empty stomach. And by that I do not mean you will not feel it -you will-, it'll just go down seamlessly, like you are being nourished with every sip and it will sit calmly in your tummy (I personally think it's the soft innocent bubbles it has, but what do I know), taking your hunger away as it fills you with a warm happy feeling.
Anyway, after such a description, I do not think I need to tell you that I was one of the last persons to leave L'Europe, and I left with my tummy full but without having had very much to eat (a shame, because L'Europe has a fantastic mix of sausages I normally do not deprive myself of). This made for some really dantesque spectacles on the street on the part of my friend and I, struggling to trade each other the beers we had been presented with in our gift bag without falling on our asses in the middle of the sidewalk, and holding on for that purpose to trees thinner than a twig with little success.
I suppose all that is part of the experience of the Isid'or and one of the reasons this beer has made its way into my heart and alcoholic memory. And as I said, and I can't stress this enough, it is a warm and pleasant one.
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