The big question usually arrives pretty early in the conversation.

Which one is your favorite Trappist beer?

I always duck, instead going directly to a story about what a revelation Westmalle Extra, at 5.3% abv, turned out to be. Nonetheless, debating which is the best beer brewed in a Trappist monastery makes for fun discussion - or a good vote.

We took just such a vote in June at an event to kickoff the National Homebrew Conference in Orlando. Rocherfort 10 won the consumer poll, while Orval was second. Details about the voting in a moment.

The Central Florida Homebrewers put together this tasting and managed to come up with all of the Trappist beers exported to the United States plus the Westvleteren 12 (purchased at the monastery and hand carried to the tasting). We also had the St. Bernardus Abt 12, which it is brewed near Westvleteren and fermented with what may be the yeast used by Westvleteren before Westmalle began to supply Westvleteren with yeast.

The setting was perfect, the beer and wine laboratory at the Rosen School of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida, a beautifully appointed room funded by Anheuser-Busch. Everything about the facility is impressive, including seating on three tiered levels, making for a most elegant classroom. Participants could comfortably line up nine glasses in front of them (thus the photo above).

The evening began with wonderful small dishes from Cafe Tu Tu Tango and a selection of Belgian (mostly Cantillon) beers generously provided by Jason Rawles of Knightly Spirits in Orlando. I was there to sing for my dinner - more accurately to make up stories about the Trappist monasteries and the beers so CFH volunteers had time to pour beer. We had nine beers before dinner, one with dinner and eight more after dinner.

This was a tasting, as opposed to a beer dinner. What you learn from sampling a few ounces of 18 different beers compared to having larger samples of a few beers (or just one beer) with a meal might be considerably different. In fact, I began the proceedings by emphasizing one of the joys of Trappist beers are they are food friendly, what Belgians like to call “digestible.”

Forty-one participants voted on their favorites (most of those on hand and not a small chore after all those beers). The points were awarded based on three points for first choice, two for second and one for third. The results might well had been different had we done a series of beer dinners (say seven over seven evenings, each featuring a different brewery - and yes I would be available to spin stories while beer is poured).

Although most of these are considered beers worth cellaring, the top-rated Rochefort 10 and Orval were younger (some would say fresher) than you usually find in the United States, the former just 15 weeks from bottling and the latter less than three months old.

During a roundtable discussion at the Craft Brewer Conference in Seattle last April, Orval brewer Jean-Marie Rock, Jan Adriaensens of Westmalle and Duvel brewing director Hedwig Neven all said they preferred to drink their beers at the time the brewery releases them. Rock was particularly spirited when discussing the subject.

He described Americans who like the Brettanomyces character - what Michael Jackson describes as “hop sack” and “fresh leather” aromas - that Orval is known for as “lucky” because he doesn’t intend for it to make itself known until six months after bottling. He prefers Orval at three months old.

Not long ago he changed the way that Brettanomyces is handled at Orval. Instead of adding the wild yeast along with dry hops for a three-week lagering period, Brett is now added at bottling. He wrote in an e-mail:

“About Brett: 20 years ago, Brett was used just before bottling. For some reason, I decided to add Brett at the beginning of lagering. We did it for more than 15 years. With the (recent) use of a centrifuge, I decided to add Brett just before filling, which in my eyes is to go ‘back to the tradition.’”

The top rated beers were (first place votes, then points received):

Rochefort 10 (8) 43
Orval (6) 37
Westveleteren 12 (5) 26
Westmalle Dubbel (4) 21
Achel Buin Extra (4) 21
Westmalle Tripel (3) 21
Achel Bruin 8 (3) 15
Chimay Blue (1) 14
Rochefort 8 (3) 13
Achel Blond 8 (2) 10
Chimay White (1) 9
Rochefort 6 (1) 5

The other beers, in the order they were ranked: St Bernardus Abt 12, Konigshoeven (La Trappe) Quarupel, Konigshoeven Blond, Chimay Red, Konigshoeven Dubbel, Konigshoeven Tripel.

(Thanks to Glenn Exline of S.A.A.Z. for the photos)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 6:35 pm and is filed under Trappists, Tasting-rating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.