100 Belgian Beers: 43 - Sint-Bernadus Abt 12
I recently saw someone say that The White Horse in Parson's Green was their favourite pub in London, with The Rake being the best bar. Which is a sentiment and distinction I can pretty much go along with. I do tend to visit The Rake much more often though, as it's much easier to get a swift one (or three) in on the way home from work.
But I really should go to The White Horse more as it's a splendid pub, even better now it's got the extra space upstairs. I can't say I'm overly keen on some of the clientele, but you can't have everything. Besides having a stonking selection of beers they have a few excellent themed beer-festivals a year; US, Belgian and the Old Ale one.
Last year (yeah, I'm still way behind on these) the Belgian one co-incided with my birthday. So that was excellent planning on their part and a fine excuse to spend the day drinking. Which obviously I wouldn't have done otherwise. With about 25 Belgian beers and a few other specials, such as a new one from BrewDog (Punk Monk, Punk IPA brewed with Belgian yeast) I was happy. And considerably more so as the day progressed.
Highlight of the day, however, was the appearance of a tobesv on a (literally) flying visit. Which naturally meant staying in the pub until they kicked us out; well after he'd come all that way it seemed impolite to leave earlier. So the journey home was a bit more complex than it could have been, but luckily pingopark steered me away from Azerbaijan.
As far as beers from the 100 list, there was de Ranke's XX Bitter in cask, which I've already had in bottle and enjoyed immensely. Also on draught was the Sint-Bernadus Abt 12, here shown off by tobesv . Oh, and those red-eyes aren't caused by flash; they really did look like that.
This is a beast of a beer; strong (10.5%), dark, chewy and stuffed with flavour. There was a bit of laughing at the tasting notes in "the book" (and I didn't make any myself) but I think mention of liquorice, chocolate and plum pudding isn't too far off the mark. "Skid mark on rubber", on the other hand... Sounds more like an embarrassing incident at a fetish club to me than something you want beer to taste of. I'm not too sure of the "aftertaste [of] cigar ash" either. I think there are many good reasons I'm never going to be a published beer writer besides being too lazy. Though now I come to think of it, the "coming all over Jilly Goolden" could also happen at fetish clubs for all I know.
But enough of that, this is definitely a great beer, and I'm looking forward to the bottle of it I've got ageing too. Hopefully the flavour will round out and be even more impressive. So, fine beer and fine company. It wasn't a bad day at all.
But I really should go to The White Horse more as it's a splendid pub, even better now it's got the extra space upstairs. I can't say I'm overly keen on some of the clientele, but you can't have everything. Besides having a stonking selection of beers they have a few excellent themed beer-festivals a year; US, Belgian and the Old Ale one.
Last year (yeah, I'm still way behind on these) the Belgian one co-incided with my birthday. So that was excellent planning on their part and a fine excuse to spend the day drinking. Which obviously I wouldn't have done otherwise. With about 25 Belgian beers and a few other specials, such as a new one from BrewDog (Punk Monk, Punk IPA brewed with Belgian yeast) I was happy. And considerably more so as the day progressed.
Highlight of the day, however, was the appearance of a tobesv on a (literally) flying visit. Which naturally meant staying in the pub until they kicked us out; well after he'd come all that way it seemed impolite to leave earlier. So the journey home was a bit more complex than it could have been, but luckily pingopark steered me away from Azerbaijan.
As far as beers from the 100 list, there was de Ranke's XX Bitter in cask, which I've already had in bottle and enjoyed immensely. Also on draught was the Sint-Bernadus Abt 12, here shown off by tobesv . Oh, and those red-eyes aren't caused by flash; they really did look like that.
This is a beast of a beer; strong (10.5%), dark, chewy and stuffed with flavour. There was a bit of laughing at the tasting notes in "the book" (and I didn't make any myself) but I think mention of liquorice, chocolate and plum pudding isn't too far off the mark. "Skid mark on rubber", on the other hand... Sounds more like an embarrassing incident at a fetish club to me than something you want beer to taste of. I'm not too sure of the "aftertaste [of] cigar ash" either. I think there are many good reasons I'm never going to be a published beer writer besides being too lazy. Though now I come to think of it, the "coming all over Jilly Goolden" could also happen at fetish clubs for all I know.
But enough of that, this is definitely a great beer, and I'm looking forward to the bottle of it I've got ageing too. Hopefully the flavour will round out and be even more impressive. So, fine beer and fine company. It wasn't a bad day at all.