Thursday 28 March 2013

Beer Reviews #9


                                            The French know theirs is the best...

Olivier’s Hamburger.

This is how the French make a burger.  They are exquisite.  Had one in the Le Sauret Bistro on our recent trip to Paris.  Olivier has made these twice for our Sunday BBQ.

It is in with the beers because, along with Beer, Hamburger is one of the 5 major food groups that everyone needs to have a balanced diet, the others being Pizza, Chocolate and Ice Cream

Hamburger.  Use good meat, and make the pattie thick to stay juicy
Dice red onions, cornichon pickles, capers and lettuce and mix with some good quality mayonnaise.
Grill the meat and the inside only of the buns.
Spread Dijon mustard and ketchup or tomato sauce on the insides of both parts of the buns
Add some slices of tomatoes and crumble some blue cheese on the meat (will melt a bit).
Layer the bun with tomatoes, the pickles, mix and complete.

Beers in Paris

Affligem. 


 One of the Abbey beers from Belgium.  Very nice, full of flavor with a smooth finish.  This is everywhere on tap in Paris and in the supermarkets in bottles also, very cheap.

 
Pelforth.


Brown. Sweet. Caramel, maybe a bit of Peach. Owned by Heineken but French.  Used to be called Pelican but now “Pel” remains and "fort" added as it is strong in hops plus "h" to make it sound British for some reason.  Very nice indeed.

 


This is an in-depth review of the Brown (“Give a Pelforth Brown to thirsty men” was the slogan).

It even mentions a French hamburger!

Pelforth Blonde.  A bit lightish.  Not a lot of point in drinking it really.  Tastes a lot like Heineken, which I can’t stand.  At least it didn’t give me a headache like Heineken does.

 
L'Abbaye de Leffe. 


Excellent.  Tried the Blonde, which is reportedly “light” but it’s still 6.6%! 


St Feuillien Blonde


 
Had this at the Academy of Beer ( http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/4482 ) which has been open since about 1960.  This was the best beer I had in Paris and in my top 10 beers of the world.  Wonderful stuff.

 
Delirium Tremens




 
I’ve had this before but I can’t remember where.  Maybe in Ft Lauderdale?  It’s a very powerful beer, running to 8.5%.  Nice, but the St Feuillien is better in my view.


Update on two German beers.

Becks.

I was a late convert to Becks, thinking (incorrectly) that it was a young person’s response to Corona i.e. something of a “trend” type beer.  I’ve had a lot of this here in Tunisia and it firms up as a great beer and one to be included when it is available.  We went to pick up a wine delivery in Tunis the other day, into a sort of a Bonded Warehouse, although it was actually a very very large yard.  There were 3 semi trailers loaded with cans of Becks.  While I was waiting I tried to calculate just how many there were on those three.  Don’t know – thousands and thousands.?  Tens of thousands? 

Heineken.

When I was young, this was one of the first real beers that you could get in WA apart from the rubbish that came out of the Swan Brewery (who had pulled the usual trick of buying a good brewery, Hannans, and promptly closing it down.  Must have made them look bad.)

 
At some point along the line, Heineken started putting some sort of preservative in the beer and I immediately began getting headaches from it.  It’s the only beer that does it to me and I now despise the stuff.  I took a bottle or two over to one of our neighbour’s boats, Renee.  He is a French connoisseur and is the one who organizes the wine here.  I offered him the Heineken, assuming it was only me who hated the stuff.  He apologized and said he couldn’t drink Heineken.  Full stop.  He just can’t stand it because gives him a headache.  I am now emboldened to state that it is just rubbish and belongs with Swan, VB, 4X etc.

Golden Brau

4.32%

Romanian.  Brewed there by Heineken Romania.  Brewed in Tunisia also by Heineken, which some readers may recall is not on my list of favourites. Nor is this.  It is golden and it is fizzy.  It is only mildly palatable because I’ve already paid for it.  I doubt I’ll be making that mistake again.

 

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