The bad thing is that Westy is really hard to get. It's brewed by Trappist monks in a small, rural Belgian town, and you can only buy the beer from them or a handful of licensed stores in the area. So many Americans are SOL.
But for my 31st birthday, my roommates Jake and JK ordered a bottle off eBay for around $30. Yep, 12 oz. for $30. Probably the best birthday gift I ever got. We cracked it on the last day of school. By the way, the long lag in the blog can be contributed to said school. I've been drinking -- just not writing about it.
The Westy comes in a brown bottle with no label. The only way you know what it is is by it's legendary bottle cap. It poured a rich brown with beautiful lacing. That lacing -- the frothy white stuff that sticks to the glass -- is what really sets Westy apart. The beer looks like none other. It also feels very thick, frothy, and effervescent in the mouth. It almost seems to come alive after you take a drink. I've never had a beer feel like that before.
In terms of taste, it's very delicate. It's roasty and sweet. It's rich and smacks of alcohol. I got hints of pear. That said, it was a lot more subtle than I thought. It was nice, just not as spectacular as I thought it would be. In fact, St. Bernardus Abt. 12 packs more flavor, but is otherwise quite similar in taste to Westy 12.
Westy, though, stands alone in lacing and mouthfeel. I know that sounds like super-snobby beer talk. Those categories seem like minutia until you have a beer that really excels in those areas. And Westy sure does.
The details:
Name: Westvleteren 12
Brewer: Brouwerij Westvleteren (Sint-Sixtusabdij van Westvleteren)
Beer Advocate rank: 1
Style: Belgian Quad
Alcohol: 10.2 percent
Cost: $30-ish for a 12-ounce bottle
My Grade: A
Skinny: No beer has a mouthfeel or lacing like Westy 12. The taste is very subtle, and I'm not sure I grasped it all. Is it as spectacular as its legend? Probably not, but it's still damn good. Wish I had easy access to the beer for repeated tries.
