Having ignored the beer blog for the better part of 2 months now, I'll refresh it with with a generous hose-down of Belgian white beers, known the world over now as biere blanche or witbier, depending on the side of the language divide the beer has its origin in.

This summary comes weeks after the actual tasting, out of the poorly scribbled notebeek I kept during the event conducted in honor of Steves departure one day hence. That afternoon we made an excursion to Beer Mania and bought 10 white beers coming to a total bill of 13 Euro including deposit! The distinguished list, in no particular order, included Blanche de Hainaut, Haacht, Dentergems, Caracole Troublette, Floris Gaarden, Blanche de Honnelle, Grisette, Blanche de Namur, and Steendonck. Notice anything missing? Of course you do, Hoegaarden, the standard by which all of these will be measured, for better or for worse. How one of the most popular and ubiquitous of Belgian swill could be considered a "standard" is a topic for yet another blog, so before you decry, discredit, and disengage, assume that there is a perfectly acceptable reason for not including it in the set.

The two best of the lot, in our heavily biased opinions, were Caracole Troublette and Floris Gaarden which both had lots of orange and spice with an acidity that might be a bit much for the timid. These matched very closely our notion of an "ideal" white beer that we both had worked hard to produce in the (now defunct) homebrewery at 2710 NE 94th street. These too were the most expensive and rarer of the group, so good luck finding them outside of the Low Countries. In our opinion, a bit more coriander would be nice, though we don't know the age of these samples.

Blanche de Niege, Grisette, Steendonck and Blanche de Namur might easily be confused with the "standard", but the discerning, un-inebriated palatte might notice some key individualities that make each interesting and worth trying in their own right. All of these were soft on the toungue, without any noticeable acidity nor any obvious flaws.

Between the two, in a class by itself perhaps, is Dentergems that had lots of clove and came in a bit on the sweet side in balance. A touch of acidity would round this out wonderfully and might develop witha little time in the bottle.

The next group was made up of those troubled ale souls that had lots of promise but, due to one brewing disability or another, fail to reach their full potential. These were Blanche to Hainaut, which was marred by a metallic flavor, and Haacht, which reeked of DMS right of the bottle. This diminished with time in the glass, however.

Only one sample truly made the "untouchables list", Blanche de Honnelles, which is a surprise considering the quality of the other beers from Abbaye des Rocs. This one was well-oxidized. I'll have to give it a second chance someday.

One blanche that we didnt' sample here but has often bathed my oral and nasal sensory complex is Blanche de Brugs. It isn't outstanding out of the bottle, but like most good white beers, with a little time in the keg it acquires a satisfying tang that makes drinking liters of it more or less compulsory. In addition, the blond proprietor of the bar up the street that serves it is quite gorgeous, which may have biased my drinking experience to a significant degree.

"Keep your lips on your pint and you will never have room for your foot." - Me