The UNOB reviews Blonde d'Achouffe beer.
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Blonde d’achouffe beer review
Submitted
by Ashley
Cotter-Cairns
Brewed right here in Montreal, Blonde
d’Achouffe beer is one of the stable of Les
Brasseurs RJ, which must be doing pretty well as I see them everywhere
somebody makes an effort to stock interesting beer.
It’ll immediately make you think it’s a Christmas beer. The red and green colouring is like a holly bush; the little gnome creature on the label even has a Santa hat on!
It’s the coldest day of the year as I review this beer, so all this winter theming feels somehow appropriate. I even chilled it by placing the bottle on my deck for 20 minutes.
My recent experience with the Unibroue Ephemere Raspberry taught me to be a little cautious about upending the beer into the glass. As it happens, it didn’t all fit, whether by accident or design, into the glass which came supplied in a limited edition Les Brasseurs RJ selection pack.
Sure enough, there’s some sediment in the bottom which I’ll be careful about not adding to the brew until I’ve reached my conclusions.
At 8% abv, this is a blonde that promises
to be
able to kick your butt if you offend her. So
I’ll try to be nice about Blonde d’Achouffe beer.
The first word that sprang to mind when I opened the bottle and took a sniff was citrus fruit. Specifically, when you buy a crate of tangerines and there’s a bad one that got squished at the packing stage, so its juice has begun to ferment and you don’t realise it until days later, when it’s a blue fluffy ball, infecting its neighbours with rancid putrefaction.
All of which, oops, sounds a bit unflattering. But I am following my nose here. Of course, it’s not THAT bad. It’s just what I was reminded of. Better talk about the taste before the blonde comes after me with a nail file...
Any Brits drinking this will be immediately reminded of Carlsberg Special Brew. This is not in itself a bad thing, but it’s got a terrible reputation back home as the poison of choice for down and outs.
Blonde d’Achouffe beer tastes treacly. But there’s a burst of citrus (fortunately nothing rotten about it), which tapers off into the dark, tricky to describe burnt caramel taste that so many stronger brews have in common. And there’s sweetness in the aftertaste, so you’re left feeling like you’ve eaten a chocolate liquer; sugar after the alcohol.
I’ve yet to try an 8% abv or higher that doesn’t remind you of its presence with a serious kick of blackened sugar.
Even carefully avoiding the sediment, there’s a few mysterious bits and bobs floating in my d’Achouffe and the blonde looks like she needs a hair wash. But blonde it is.
All this said, and nobody’s any the wiser! Do I actually LIKE this beer? Yes. Yes, I do. Once upon a time, I would have found it too sophisticated. But with every sip, it becomes more appealing.
Doubt if I could put away a six pack, as by then I would probably be attempting to make love to the bottle, while quoting a poem I wrote at the age of sixteen about a zombie jilted by his lover, who came back from the dead to avenge himself on her boyfriend. Hey, I think this stuff might be working.
It’s a sound reminder of how far I’ve come since starting the United Nations of Beer. I’ve left the safe, well-lit path of big-brand and bland and have begun negotiating the weed-strewn backroads of small label, organic and micro brew tastes.
Blonde d’Achouffe beer is a solid eight percenter, tasty, if cloudy. Added bonus, it won’t criticise your rhyming teenage angst. And I’ve just upended the last half-inch, sediment and all, with no ill effects.
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