While traveling in Belgium in November, I had a chance to reacquaint myself with the beers of the West Flanders brewery, Sint-Bernardus. Based in Watou, St. Bernardus is probably still best known for its St. Sixtus line of ales, produced under licence with the Westvleteren monastery up until the contract ran out in 1992. More than a decade later, I'm pleased to report that the brewery's beers, now labelled simply St. Bernardus, are better than ever.
In particular, I was struck by the character of the Abt, a dark, 10.5% alcohol ale I had to good fortune to discover on draught. Rich but not too heavy, it is a surprisingly easy-going beer with great depth, soft maltiness and misleadingly understated alcohol. In fact, the Abt on tap is frighteningly quaffable, a fact which I proved by going back for a second chalice after I had sipped my way through the first.
What really impressed me about the Abt is the way that it combines a satisfying maltiness with a body that is neither disappointingly thin nor overwhelmingly intense. Don't get me wrong; I like intensely flavoured beers as much as the next beer aficionado. But there is something about the Abt's dark chocolate and aniseed flavours, combined with mild roastiness, that simply gives it superb balance. I suspect that it might be an interesting exercise to compare the draught Abt with the bottled version, but that's an experiment that will have to wait for my next trip to beer's promised land.
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