Tribute

This is the greatest and best beer in the world's. . . tribute.

Earlier this week I was in Cafe Bizon, when the barman asked "What do you want?", "What beers have you got?", I replied, "Any beer you want.", said the bar keep. As a joke I asked for a glass of Westvleteren.

Belgium has a total of 6 Trappist breweries, Westmalle, Westvleteren, Chimay, Rochefort, Orval and Achel. On drinking my way through this distinguished list I found that by far and away my favourite was Westvleteren. Unfortunately, this beer is as rare as Pixie Poo and took an awful lot of tracking down for my first encounter. The reason for this rarity is that a couple of years back it was voted the best beer in the world. Subsequently, demand was enormous, stocks depleted and cases of this beery nectar sold for large sums of money on e-bay. Eventually the monks at St Barnabus monastery, formerly St Sixtus, said enough is enough and stopped sales of the beer outside of the abbey. Today to get hold of this heavenly brew you need to make the pilgrimage to the monastery in Flanders where you are limited to a maximum of one case.

Meanwhile, back in the Bizun, the barkeep looked around furtively and said yes they have a small number of bottles left, the remnants of a case but this must be kept secret (you wont tell anyone will you?). A few minutes later I had a distinctive bottle of the Trappist nectar sitting in front of me, distinguished by its lack of a label with just the bottle top to identify it. Moments later the beer was poured and I had a glass of it cradled in my hand on the road to beery Nirvana. Slightly sweet in a woody sort of way, with a taste redolent of strawberries on a Summers day, I could almost hear the monastery bells tolling in my ears. No wait, that was just a blues riff from Tommy Bolin ringing out from the Bizon bar speaker system.

My thanks go out to Rob Campell for purchasing this rarest of the rare in his round. Greatest beer in the world? Oh hell yes, I feel a road trip coming on.