Beer.

mmmmm. . . . .

Finally got around to opening up the Grand Cru last night, so here’s the word on that and the Giddy Up.

Giddy Up
6% ABV
The giddy up is really tasty. I would qualify the base of the brew as something around a brown ale, but it’s deceptively dark tasting because of the espresso in it. It has a fairly light mouthfeel to it, so it’s easy to drink. The espresso is definitely the dominating taste, and the hint of lemon is really an afterthought. You get just a little zing from the lemon at the end of the flavor. It has a fairly low bitterness with not a lot of hop flavor to it. Just enough to complement the espresso.

I think one of the really cool things about this beer is how much it pulls some of the parallels out of roasting coffee beans with roasting grains from beer. The same toasted, chocolate, and caramel flavors you get in a nice dark beer are also there, but they come from the coffee, so it has a different twist on them. It’s like getting your alcohol with your coffee in the morning. (and no, I didn’t have one this morning before work, but I do have one left, and I did consider it).

Oh yeah, and as my new roomie Rocco pointed out, it probably has some caffeine in it as well, so that means you can drink longer, right?

Ok, it’s probably not that much.

Grand Cru
ABV 9.5%
The Grand Cru. This is a pretty traditional Belgian-Style Dubbel. It’s a high-alcohol beer and is carbonated in the bottle which means there is a bit of yeast in the bottle. However, like most belgian yeasts, they add a lot of flavor to the beer, so having some in the bottle really isn’t a bad thing (think belgian wheat beers).

This beer has a nice copper/brown color with a creamy head on it. The mouthfeel is pretty heavy (as expected) so it’s definitely a slow drinker. It has a sweet aroma, but it is more syrupy than fruity with a bit of spice to it.

The taste has a distinct flavor of maltiness to it, buy I thought it was a bit syrupy tasting to me. It’s hard to exactly put my finger on it, but the closest thing I can say is that I usually taste the wort of my beers before they start fermenting, and it had that same sugary/malty/syrupy flavor to it. This is a characteristic of some heavier belgian beers, and I’m sure some people like it, but it’s not my favorite.

I like the spicy notes that the belgian yeast gave it, and I purposely poured out the full remainder of the bottle into my glass when I finished off the bomber to get a bit more of this flavor throughout the beer. I think if I got another one, I would take the bottle and roll it on the table before pouring to re-suspend whatever was still left of that delicious belgian yeast in the beer before pouring. It also seemed to help the syrupy flavor of the beer a bit.

The beer also seemed to get a little bit more fruity and spicy as it warmed up a bit. In fact, after starting the second glass, I finally got around the reading the label only to find that it said to serve it cool, not cold (about 50F instead of the more common 40-45F).

This is a good beer to have with some food, as it’s a bit of a heavy drinker on its own. If you like big heavy belgian beers, this is a good one.

Thanks again to the beer fairy for dropping by some samples, and thanks to New Belgium for some more delicious brews.