Bringing that Belgian funk from Brooklyn town

This bottle of Local 1 has spent the best part of a year in my beer fridge. Not for any reasons relating to maturation and such, merely a matter of waiting for the right moment. Monday evening last week fitted the bill; it had been a mother of a Monday in the workplace and I had some tasty cheese and cold cuts left over from the weekend. The popping of a cork from a generous bottle of beer such as this is always very satisfying. The hazy golden beer eagerly filled the glass only to retreat rapidly again leaving little foam, but the lively effervescence brought a distinct Belgian funk to the nose along with a malt sweetness that translates into a honey sweetness on the tongue.

I suppose this beer is a take on the Belgian Tripel - the label speaks of raw sugar additions from Mauritius which serve to thin out the body and make the beer very drinkable despite the hefty 9% abv. It works very well in this sense. The '100% bottle refermentation' make this a lively beer and I imagine the cork cage has its work cut out containing the pressure. The carbonation sits nicely, and carved through the heavy cheese and other oily treats I had with it.

As an aside, you might have noticed yet another dark, flash washed out, shadow strewn picture of a beer bottle accompanying this post. It's not ideal, but at the time of drinking I just want to get the beer in the glass and enjoy it. I usually throw down a few notes, but breaking out the camera and taking a picture often ruins the moment for me. Does anyone else who indulges in this beer blogging lark feel the same, or am I just shamefully uncommitted?

Death in the northern hemisphere

Summer is reluctantly giving way to autumn in Dublin. The weather is still pleasantly mild, but the state of my wife's once glorious sun flowers tell a different story. They are sorry sight but the only clear sign to me that we are careening towards less temperate weather. To my mind it isn't quite time enough to break out the winter warming beer and don't really feel like committing something dark, rich and alcoholic to a glass is fully justified.

I made do the other night with something rich and alcoholic, yet crisp and full of  fresh hop character. Unsurprisingly from the West coast of America, Sierra Nevada's Southern Hemisphere Harvest Fresh Hop Ale is very bitter and bursting with hop flavour. It is satisfyingly full bodied and thanks to all those floral, spicy hops it holds onto rich foam all the way to the bottom of the glass - a characteristic that always pleases me greatly in any beer. Plenty of sticky body and malt holds its own against the hop onslaught resulting in a well balanced, all too easily drinkable warming ale. A few more of these will do the job nicely until such time I can happily hit the the more traditional cockle warmers.