Origin: Belgium
Type: Double malt ale
Color: Golden
Alcohol content: 8%
Recommended serving temperature: 10ºC/50ºF
Brewery: Brasserie d'Ecaussinnes
I realize that, after this, it will be hard to uphold my statement from a couple of posts ago about me not having a sweet tooth, but regardless I have decided to write today about Brasserie d'Ecaussinnes' Cookie Beer.
Further, I have decided not to justify myself here but rather to expose the main characteristics of this beer, in the hope that you will see by the end that it is not necessarily the ingredient which gives a name to the beer that which makes it so interesting, but actually the way it is complemented and the whole end product.
Let me first give you some background.
A couple of weeks ago, in Easter, I took my yearly trip to Belgium (pilgrimage some might say). I managed to go to Brussels, Ghent and Brugge before a stomach flu indecently pinned me down and kept me in bed for the last day and a half, thereby baring me from doing much tasting. Upon arrival in Belgium of course I made sure to stock up on Brugge Tripel and Leffe Rituel 9º, and did my best to accompany every meal with a beer, but I had to catch up with a few beers, old friends I cannot really have on a normal basis, so I was not able to go as far as I would have liked in trying new ones. This is the reason why, although I did get material for a few new posts, I do not have enough for a monographic on the trip like I did for Charleston.
I did manage nevertheless to stop by a beer shop in Brugge, get myself a Delirium Tremens glass (a long overdue acquisition) and have my eye (as my girlfriend had hers) caught by the Cookie Beer.
Now my girlfriend does have a bit of a sweet tooth and she was immediately curious. I on my side enjoy speculoos cookies and was pretty impressed by the 8% ABV and, well you know it is in bad taste to let a girl drink by herself.
Tempted as we were, we hesitantly bought two and were pleasantly surprised.
The Cookie Beer is of a dark yellow color, slightly hazy in the manner abbey beers are. It has a decent amount of foam, composed of a multitude of very fine bubbles, sort of like champagne does. The appearance in no way gives the impression that it is made with cookies. It looks like, say, an abbey triple beer.
With this appearance, it is a good thing the label says "Cookie Beer" in big letters, otherwise you might be extremely surprised when you smell it.
Depending on the temperature you drink it at, the smell of this beer varies quite largely. If you drink it anywhere below 10ºC/50ºF, there is a very good chance you will have a small whiff of soft cinnamon and some other light spices every time you bring it close to your nose. As it warms up a little though, the smell evolves and the sweetness appears. The warmer it gets, the easier it is to tell the smell of cookie crumbs.
This is very inviting, especially if you are slightly tipsy. You are definitely going to catch yourself spending quite a lot of time with your nose in this beer. Just be sure not to let yourself get tricked into thinking that, since it smells like cookies, having a nice big gulp will provide nutrients and reduce your tipsiness, because it may provide nutrients, but it will not get you less drunk.
When you manage to bring yourself to drink it, you will find more or less the same thing upon tasting it. The taste of this beer when it is really cold is more or less cinnamon and spice in a very Belgian beer. This of itself is very interesting, providing for a slight twist to the traditional beers to be found in Belgium. However, as it warms up a little, the taste becomes more complex.
The abbey style beer taste never really disappears, but the taste that comes to the front is of course that of speculoos cookies. For those who are not familiar with speculoos cookies, these are cookies made (according to Wikipedia) with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom and white pepper, as well as flour, sugar, and butter. They are traditional in the Netherlands, Belgium, north of France and Germany during Christmas time.
This means that this beer, as my girlfriend without knowing these cookies herself very aptly put it, tastes like Christmas.
She meant it of course regarding this initial flavor. However, I believe that it is not only the initial cookie flavor that makes the beer taste like Christmas, but its overall feel.
Indeed, as I said, the speculoos flavor is more apparent as the beer warms up, but this also leads to the alcohol being more noticeable. The sequence goes like this. You start with a sweet and cookie like taste at the beginning, which then gets dryer, sort of like when you are eating a cookie and the crumbs dry your throat as they pass. You kind of do think that you are eating the actual cookie crumbs because it has a slightly thick texture to it as it passes. Then, as the first cookie shock fades, the alcohol kicks in. It is not a strong bothering alcohol taste, but it is in any case clearly noticeable. It slightly overpowers the sweet cookie taste and it stays until the end, and thereby makes you see that you are not just drinking some sad attempt to make girly girl tolerated beer, but actually the real thing.
In short, this beer gives you the feeling you are mixing cookies and alcohol, and doing so pretty nicely. Even if the alcohol comes up pretty unexpectedly to join the sweet party in your mouth, it does so harmoniously, making you happy (like all good alcohol should) and leaving you with a smile on your face.
This mix in my mind only happens in Christmas with eggnog and that is why in my opinion this beer gives the overall impression that it is again the Christmas season. However, I suppose you can always find other very valid reasons to mix cookies and alcohol (a hearty breakfast for example). What is in any case clear is that this is a great beer to pair with anything sweet, not only enhancing it, but also complementing it and making it saucier and therefore more interesting.
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