Saturday, January 2, 2010

Gulden Draak, Belgium (10.5%) & KB Lager (4.6%)

Happy New Year! As a treat, I have two beers to share that made an impact on me during my drinking over the holidays. while there were tooheys old, cascade premium lager, boag's st george (with banana), coopers pale ale, fat yak, little creatures bright ale and Feral White (this last one not being any good) that i can remember having, these two stood above the rest for their own reasons. The first was a bit of a surprise in many regards. firstly, i saw it in Nelson Bay, secondly, i had actually ordered a Piraat, an thirdly it was actually pretty good. of course it didn't have a head and trying to drink it quickly to make a movie made my head spin for 30 mins, but the texture was smooth, the malt was dark and rich (to the point of tasting like berries on the back of the tongue) and there was little harsh alcohol to ruin the aftertaste. still, even with this ease, it was still a sipping beer (port-like), and my tongue was tingling with each taste by the end as the alcohol took effect. still, a highly regarded high alcohol beer is the end result from this tasting.



Now, a change of pace. back in the 80's this beer was everywhere at the cricket and an aussie staple. in recent decades with brewery take overs, this beer has been relegated to near extinction status, but on a lucky endeavour into a bottlo in Shoal Bay, a case of this beer was found and bought for our new years celebrations. I am very proud to have been able to find and consume this as in my whole life i had only tasted it once before on a footy trip in country NSW. and my word did it go down a treat. No, it didn't taste great with the yeasty afterburn and watery taste, but as i have said previously, nostalgia can have such an impact on drinking, and why people go back to the same beer, over and over again. my stomach is still getting over this beer (or was it just i had 15 on NYE?). we found it was alright as the first beer, and when it was really cold or sort of warm. if you had just had a couple of beers before this one it was quite difficult to drink, and if it was cool it did not go down too well either. still, in comparison with other mainstream beers, we found this one not to be as bad.

Anyway, hope your end of 2009 had the good beer journeys i had, and looking forward to trying and recording more beers in 2010.

Beefy

6 comments:

Joel said...

mmmm KB. Your watery, yeasty, aluminium tainted goodness shall stay with me for a very long time.

The sound of a glistening, perspiring can of KB straight from the esky being cracked as the dull metal ring pull pierced the opening and the white head exploded forth with such a breaddy bouquet promising good things to come will never be matched.

Bebedores do Gondufo said...

Happy New Year 2010.
Portugal

beefy said...

yes, that sound of quality as the can is opened. sweaty KB...is there anything sexier than that?

Andrew Rostas said...

No

Josh said...

Boges - great reviewing and I love the blog.!! I have passed it onto a couple of mates as I thought they would appreciate it. Josh

Unknown said...

Beefy et al .. This may be a bit before your time, but there used to be a distinct association between 'KB' and bars with ceramic times halfway up the walls .. do such places still exist?
Gary