Beer Around Town

No, not that kind of package… focus, it’s beer we are talking about here. In an ode to Jeff’s recent article about Rogue’s pricing, Brett Joyce responded with:

“Our 21 year mission has been to provide World Class Products, put them in World Class Packages…”

I’m not going to get into the Rogue pricing discussion here, but on the note of “World Class Packages” I thought it was the perfect intro into the Import Beer Tasting at Belmont Station yesterday. Known for their great in-store beer tastings, Belmont hosted a tasting of some of their “fancy” imports, lead by importer Michael Hartman of B United. Included were:

• Hitachino Ginger
• Baladin Sour Edition
• Barley BB Dexi
• Bogedal#127
• Birra del Borgo Te’
• Sinebrychoff Porter

Any chance to try some of these normally unaffordable brews is a good excuse to drop by Belmont. Now in fairness, half of these beers are reasonably priced, but some of these Italian and Swiss beers are just far to expensive. It was great to try them, and most of them are decent to good, but I couldn’t justify the price when bottles like Consecration are available for close to the same price. What gets me about a lot of these Italian beers in particular are their “World Class Packages”, each a uniquely shaped bottle housing a mediocre beer. If you are going to  have a fancy bottle like Orval, step up and brew a beer that lives up to the image.  The Te was soft and airy, doughy malts, dry and herbal.  Baladin Sour Edition was a decent saison, dry and tart, not really sour at all, cherry notes and soft earthy character. The Bogedal #127 was the most interesting, sort of dusty, musty cellar air quality that reminds me a bit of Orval, finish has orange peel and caramel. Quality is decent, but better beers could be found at Belmont for half the price. With that said packaging and price must be selling these beers.  Are people opting for the best looking bottle or thinking price and quality are bound?

In the end, I’ll stay with the $6.00 Orval.