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Blog Entry 24 of 24 My Life: Beer and Blogs

I'm a new media guy who happens to live in the Napa Valley of beer. This blog will chronicle my adventures through beers, blogs and everything else. Cheers!

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A tale of two Duvels

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Contributed by: Justinian Hatfield on 3/19/2008

This is a tale of two Duvels. The first was purchased in Brussels, Belgium. The second was purchased in Lakewood, CO.
There is some debate amongst beer geeks that the Guinness you drink on tap in Dublin is not the same Guinness you drink on tap in the states. Is the same true for Duvel? I set out on a quest to find out.
My boss was in Brussels last month and he picked me up a couple bottles of beer, one of which was a Duvel. My wife was sweet enough to pick me up another bottle of Duvel here in town.
If you're not familiar with Duvel, head down to the Cheeky Monk on Colfax and order one. Duvel is a marvel of a beer. It's almost as light as a domestic lager, yet it's full of flavor and alcohol. At 8.5% this isn't your ordinary watch-the-game beer, (unless you're Belgium and the game is football, err soccer).
As with most Belgium beers, the Belgium yeast produces a slight estery flavor and aroma, which can best be described as smelling and tasting of banana. Although the marketing people have also decided that these flavors can also impart a "skunky" flavor.
Before I get to the actual comparison, I'd like to point out that comparing two of the same beer is a difficult undertaking. I'd also like to point out that my comparison wasn't nearly scientific and that it wasn't an apples-to-apples comparison because the Belgium beer was a standard 12 ounce and the import was a 22 ounce.
The only difference, and it's a big one, concerning the labels was that one was in English and the other was in Dutch.
Right off the bat I noticed that the Belgium beer was much cloudier than the import. both of these beers were bottle conditioned. That means that the carbonation was created by adding a small amount of sugar to the bottle, which the yeast left over from the fermentation process, eats up and spits out carbon dioxide, which makes the bubbles and also a small layer of yeast in the bottom. Most beers are carbonated by injecting the bottles with carbon dioxide. It's entirely possible that since the Belgium was smaller, I poured some of the yeast into the glass, although I tried to be careful.
It also seemed like the imported Duvel was more carbonated, while the Belgium Duvel seemed a bit thicker and had more mouthfeel.
The import version also seemed to have a more pronounced ester aroma. It also appeared to be a it lighter and a tad bit sweeter. It could be that the import version has been sitting around for a bit longer and therefore developed some stronger flavors.
Each time I tasted I switched the order of tasting, so if I had the Belgium first one taste, I switched to the Import first the next.
In the end, I did notice that the import's flavors were more harsh than the Belgium's. I think this is probably due to freshness. Just to be on the safe side I asked My wife to taste each one, and without any direction from me, she too noticed that the imported Duvel's wasn't as smooth as the Belgium version.

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Showing 1-9 of 9 comments

Submitted By: Nikki Britain

posted on 4/13/2008 @ 8:05:22 AM

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Sure you did, Mick.... sure you did. ;-}

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Submitted By: Michael Rule

posted on 4/1/2008 @ 7:46:36 AM

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I Know, I know....I stopped that when I had to start wearing glasses.....

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Submitted By: Nikki Britain

posted on 3/28/2008 @ 7:27:31 PM

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Ummm, Mick, it's not beer drinking that makes you go blinds it's.......

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Submitted By: Michael Rule

posted on 3/28/2008 @ 7:01:44 PM

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I think with enough testing, he will be blind........

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Submitted By: Stan Dyer

posted on 3/28/2008 @ 5:03:03 AM

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I still wonder if your preconceived notions did not affect your opinions. Even though you were comparing versions of the same beer, did you devise some way to make it impossible to know which one you were tasting until the test was over? Of course, you would have to do the visual comparisons later, but there is no way to be certain how your biases affected your results unless the test was completely blind.

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Submitted By: Gladys Mercier

posted on 3/25/2008 @ 8:25:34 PM

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You seem to know all about beer but I am not a beer drinker so I will just take your word for it.

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Submitted By: Lisa Arata

posted on 3/23/2008 @ 10:59:06 AM

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Most useful thing I've read all morning. One ought to know this. Thank you.

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Submitted By: Michael Rule

posted on 3/22/2008 @ 6:11:36 AM

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Maybe next time we meet at the cheeky monk and do a 3-way test with their draft version? (I just invited myself!)Last night's brew - O'Dell's 5 Barrel Pale Ale....

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Submitted By: Nikki Britain

posted on 3/20/2008 @ 6:56:19 AM

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Had a friend from Belgium and this was his beer of choice at home. When he visited Colorado he always ordered Fat Tires which he referred to in his charming accent as "Fatties". Thanks for bringing back some fun memories!

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Showing 1-9 of 9 comments

CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Justinian Hatfield

Lakewood , CO

Justinian Hatfield has posted 24 blog entries and 51 comments since joining on 7/12/2006. Justinian Hatfield's average blog rating is 5.

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