A Glass of Rodenbach
by Beeraroundtown ~ June 15th, 2009. Filed under: New Beers.
I thought I had heard talk that Rodenbach was going to resume being imported into the country, this leading me to believe it had ceased from our shelves. I dropped into Market of Choice on the way home today to pick up a few beers there was a bottle of Rodenbach sitting on the shelves. I’m not sure if the distribution news was correct, but it was there, a lone bottle, scruffy and dusty on the outside, date on the back reading 24/04/08, so over a year since bottling (maybe that is typical of them?). Thinking this may be a anomaly I decided to purchase the sour orphan, at only $2.19 it wasn’t much of a gamble anyway.
It has been a while since I’ve had the regular Rodenbach. In my mind it remained inferior to the Grand Cru and Alexander, but still a strong contender anyway. I had a memory of an interesting play between sweet and sour, both extremes present in one beer, that notion was squashed, the sour side not really showing up as I remembered. Maybe my sensory perception of sour beer has changed over the years or maybe I was mixing up the regular and Grand Cru. Aside from all that the beer is still very enjoyable, big oak along with sweet cherry and rum raisin cake to the sweetness. The sourness is there, much softer then I remember, but enough to provide some balance. There is a mild wine vinegar acidity to it.
I do hope these return to the states if they have indeed ceased import, maybe even the Alexander will be released again. Anyone have any news on that?
June 16th, 2009 at 5:50 am
It’s been available at Higgin’s last few times I’ve visited . . . maybe they have a stash!
June 16th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Dave,
Did they have any of the Grand Cru?
June 16th, 2009 at 10:07 am
I’ve asked Aaron at MoC to try and get some of the Grand Cru
June 16th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Josh,
So is it still available in the US?
June 17th, 2009 at 9:08 am
I’m not sure. Last time we spoke, they said that they used to carry it and will see if they can. My assumption is that if Belmont Station doesn’t have it, then we can’t get it over here.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
A.) What did you do to that photo? It’s spectacular.
B.) Sweet and sour? You sure you’re not thinking of Duchesse De Bourgogne?
C.) *cradles my last bottle of Grand Cru like a baby* I’ve had one sitting on its side for a little over a year now, hoping to pick up a little more funk from the cork (my 3-month experiment was quite successful).
-anónimo
June 19th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Anon,
1. I’m not sure what I did, I think I added a Hard Light layer over the original, came out sort of looking like a painting in the colors.
2. Yah, similar to Duchesse, funny to think that I once thought of Duchess as being insanely sour, oh how the tastes change.
3. I’d like to hear how that experiment goes. I once had a bottle of a De Dolle Anniversary beer that had a lot of cork/wood flavor to it and it was exceptional, not sure if this was purely caused by the cork, but I’ve often thought about laying a bottle on its side to see. The only negative to laying the bottle on it’s side is greater surface area to oxidize.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
That looks like a glass of trueblood. Fizzy trueblood.