The big one

In the beer geek culture, no beer is bigger than Westvleteren 12. The Belgian-style quad affectionately known as Westy jockeys with Pliny the Younger for the top spot on Beer Advocate's best beer list. Usually, Westy gets the nod.



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.

Simply the Brett

Brettanomyces is an oddity of the beer world. It's essentially a yeast strand that has morphed and gives off a very odd flavor. In many beers, finding brett would be bad and give it a bad flavor. But some kinds of beers -- mostly those brewed in the Belgian style -- are centered on brett.

And few beers do it better than Boulevard Saison - Brett.

I love saisons. At the moment, they're my favorite style. And Saison - Brett is one of the best out there.

It pours golden with a frothy head that quikckly disappears. Smell is of hops and yeasty spiciness.

The taste is very crisp from dry hopping. Then you get that Brett funk. Some say it's a horse-blanket taste. Others say hay, straw, must, barnyard. Sounds gross, I know. But that funk works really well with the crisp hop bite and the crazy yeast spiciness. The Brett taste lingers. But there's also some peppery and even slightly sour notes going on.

It all combines for a very crisp, aggressive, robust saison. If anything, it may be too aggressive. Ommegang Hennepin, which I see as the Cadillac of the saison style, has a lot of the same flavor profile, but everything blends a little bit better.

Still, Saison-Brett can't be faulted. This beer is spectacular.


The details:
Name: Saison - Brett
Brewer: Boulevard Brewing Co.
Beer Advocate rank: 87
Style: Belgian Saison
Alcohol: 8.5 percent
Cost: $11.69 for a 750-ml bottle
My Grade: A
Skinny: This beer certainly isn't for everyone. It has a very distinct taste -- one that I love. It's highly creative, while still fitting firmly within the confines of the saison. In short, this is a beer you should experience -- whether you'll like it or not. I very much like it.

Ghostly good

Sunday night was an evening of high expectations. The series finale of "Lost" aired. To commemorate the death of my favorite show, I picked a beer I'd been highly anticipating drinking -- Fantome Saison. (Plus it seemed like a good fit with "Lost," a show that features a phantom-like smoke monster.)

Fantome Saison is the highest rated saison, according to Beer Advocate. Rate Beer also gives it a 99 out of 100. Since I love saisons, I really, really wanted to try this beer, which is brewed in Belgium and is hard to find in the US. I got lucky and snagged a bottle at New Beer Distributors in New York.

As I watched the two-hour recap that preceded the "Lost" finale, I cracked open the Fantome.

It had a slight sour and musty smell, but it's faint. It poured a cloudy gold that gets milkier further down the bottle from the unfiltered yeast sediment.

The taste was surprisingly delicate -- slightly sour with some barnyard funk. The sour hits the back of the mouth, causing a slight pucker and the roof of the mouth to salivate. The funk -- a light horse-blanket taste -- intensifies on the backend. The beer has a flat carbonation, which makes drinking it sort of a wine-like experience.

What the beer lacks in taste intensity, it makes up for in authenticity. This is a classic farmhouse ale -- raw, simple, natural, organic. It's an artful Belgian gold ale that is worth seeking out.

That said -- like the "Lost" finale itself -- the Fantome didn't quite meet my lofty expectations. It's a good beer for sure. But I don't think it's great.


The details:
Name: Fantome Saison
Brewer: Brasserie Fantome
Beer Advocate rank: 68
Style: Belgian Saison
Alcohol: 8 percent
Cost: $12 for a 750-ml bottle
My Grade: A-
Skinny: Saisons just may be my favorite beer style at the moment. I highly anticipated this one because it's rated the best saison in the world by Beer Advocate. It's good, for sure -- delicate, funky, raw. But it's a bit more understated than I expected. I'd put it third on the world's best saison list -- a bit behind Ommegang Hennepin, which for me is still king of the saisons, and the wonderful Boulevard Saison - Brett.

It's the end of the world

When I was a late-teenager, I visited Canada with my family. Because the drinking age was quite young there, I was able to legally drink beer. My dad and I decided we'd move beyond the regular Coors Light and try to become more enlightened beer drinkers.

We tried local Canadian beers like Labatt, Molson, Sleeman and other regional brews. They were all essentially light lagers. While they certainly boasted better craftsmanship than Bud and Coors, they weren't exactly cutting-edge craft brews. On a boat tour of the Saint Lawrence River near Quebec City, we ordered a local favorite -- La Fin du Monde.

Our Nebraska taste buds weren't ready for the complex Belgian-style triple. As my dad said, "It tasted sharp." I thought it tasted spicy and almost spoiled.

It tasted, well, like the end of the world.

La Fin du Monde translates literally as, "The end of the world." I still think it tastes that way -- but with a twist. It's a beer you want to taste at the end because it's so complex and rich it puts others to shame.

The beer pours a light gold with a delicate head. It smells yeasty -- almost like elaborate spices. It tastes the same. The yeast strains are so intricate, your tastes buds are almost overloaded. Your head spins trying to figure our what's going on. Then, quickly, the experience is over. The taste ends crisply, leaving you refreshed. You go back for more. Then the 9 percent alcohol hits you. And that's always a good thing.

I eventually did become a more enlightened beer drinker. After getting into Americanized imperial stouts and IPAs, I moved on to Belgian-style beers. Belgians are a trip, and that journey took me back to La Fin du Monde.

I grabbed a bottle at the wonderful Omaha beer store Beertopia this week. I brought it home to my dad. He laughed when he saw it -- both out of the Quebec memory and out of nervousness that I'd make him drink it. I had since broken him in on Belgians a bit, so I thought he might like it. I coaxed him into it.

He took a drink and nodded. "It's good," he said. "Real good."

I guess that trip to Quebec years ago is still giving us some culture.


The details:
Name: La Fin du Monde
Brewer: Unibroue
Beer Advocate rank: 91
Style: Belgian-style triple
Alcohol: 9 percent
Cost: $8 for a 750 ml bottle
My Grade: A
Skinny: If the world were ending, this is one of the last beers I'd want to drink. It's golden in color, packs a spicy, yeasty finish and boasts a nice 9-percent alcohol punch. Perfect for sipping in the summer or early fall. In terms of triples, it ranks only behind Westmalle in my book.