Deus - Brut des Flanders

Cuvee Prestige 2006
750ml
$55
France/Belgium

I had this on Saturday night with a few friends and it really split the room. Quite a unique style of beer, made in Belgium in the top fermenting style then taken to France (the Flanders region) to be aged on yeast lees like a champagne. The notes on the bottle don't say how long it spends ageing in their cellars but by the taste I would suspect it was at least 12 months.

On the nose it offers a really heady sweet orange and scents of hay. The yeasty bready notes are really dominant and ou get almost wheaty cardamom smell.
Really fine bubble and if you pour it too quickly it gets a really mean head on it. The palate offers much the same with an almost sour back palate like a Belian gueuze beer.

Not my favourite beer in the world but well worth a try and probably better when matched with food. I'd like to try another vintage to see whether like wine they are vintage varient.

Graham

The German Club of Brisbane and Franziskarner Dunkel

I went to the German Club of Brisbane the other week with some good buggers, we drank some brilliant beer while our wives had a meal in the dinning area. Very good, simple, well cooked food. I had a pigs knuckle, which you can see above. It tasted a lot like a lamb shank but with heaps more crusty fat. Once you pushed the crust off, there was some beautifully slow cooked meat and the potatoes were great.

We drank (tried) many different beers this nigh, all on tap! Erdinger, Schneider, Fischers and Franziskarner Dunkel. The last of these (FD) left the biggest impact, just the right amount of caramel and burt butterscotch and a genuinely driving, Vegemite taste. Real warm molasses with a good dry finish.

Love the German Club. Membership is only $5.00

Dan