Jason:

The Buffalo Brews podcast. This is the part where we get to brush up on our French. Yeah, right.

That's right. So, say Unibrew. Unibrew.

Unibrew. La fin du monde. La fin du monde.

La fin du monde. La fin du monde. As I put it in F-O-N for some reason on my spelling even though it's spelled F-I-N.

La fin.

Craig:

Like when you see the end of a movie.

Jason:

Meaning the end of the world from brasserie, brasserie, brewery. We're gonna figure out the pronunciation on that. They're the most common.

In Chambly, Quebec, Canada. And then this is part of their classic year-round collection. Simple stats I got on this one.

This comes in at 9% ABV, 19 IBUs. So, nice and subtle according to the statistics here. And then a 5.5 SRM which we talked about in our last episode which is the standard reference method.

Craig:

So, by definition, I guess this is considered to be almost clear at a 5.5. Well, the SRM scale is a tough one because you're going from basically pale straw to almost no color. Off gold or off clear to slight yellow all the way to opaque black. So, it gets, and to give you a good idea, it's basically from 1 SRM to basically 40 is where it really kind of, there's just no difference after that.

Kind of like when hot gets, how much hotter can we get? It's like how much darker can you get? Technically less light's getting through so on and so forth but that's too much info.

But you go from 30 to 40 and that basically goes from black to opaque black. So, there's so much black in there and you'd look at one and to determine whether it's a 30, 35, or 40 is going to be like splitting hairs. But the funny part is going from 0 to 10 is like 80% of the beers that are drank in the world.

So, there's a lot of changes within those. So, if we think of like the lightest light, like if you think of like a Coors Light or something even lighter than that where, you know, it's got this very pale straw. That's kind of what it's used.

That's around like 1, 2, and 3 SRM. And then, you know, you get to straw is more at like the 3, 4, you know, you kind of get to gold right around that 5, 6. That's gold.

And then amber is usually in the 6 to 9 category. So, if we think from pale straw, gold, and then now we're into amber because the SRM scale relies heavily on blue and red colors. Mainly how much red is in the beer.

It used to be, before we had the scale, there was, I don't remember the scientist's name who had it, but basically had these different shades of red that you kept just layering on top of each other until you got the color that you were looking for. And that's how you determine the SRM. And, you know, all beer kind of has a base redness to it and that's coming from the barley and whatnot.

So, yeah, this one, you know, when you look at this, you know, we would say yellow. But in the beer terms, it's golden. It's, to me, it's a full golden.

It's not necessarily a light gold, not necessarily a dark gold. It's, you know, if we compare it to the Oroville we had on our last episode, very similar, very similar in color, on the cusp of getting a little bit of a reddish hue. Another nice thing is when you pick it up and put it to the light, you'll see some of the undertones.

And, you know, that's when you start seeing, when you get to an amber beer or, you know, the light brown, brown beers, you'll start seeing things like chestnut and ruby and some of those underlying red notes are shining through. And when you look at it, you know, when you're standing above it or directly at it and not really through the lens of the light, you don't see those undertones. So, you know, pick up your beer.

That's why we toast. Not, not, not really, but, you know, look at your beer, you know, when you toast somebody, look at the beer because, I don't know, there's a, I don't know, a cool meme going on where, I forget the gentleman's name, I love the actor, but takes a big sip of beer and, you know, through the, the gulp, he's just like, it just, it tastes like a reward, you know, it's just, and to me, beer is that, you know, you take a big sip and I'm a gulper, always have been, I take big gulps of beer because every gulp is just like, oh yeah, you know, just, yep, that's what I was looking for, that hit the spot, especially with the, you know, a good beer and I'll segway that into, you know, what we're drinking because it is a world-class, when we talk about world-class beers and breweries, you know, this is not a Trappist brewery, we'll brush back up on what a Trappist brewery means, but it's a Trappist style. So, we were talking about, you know, before going on air here, what, what it means to be, you know, called a, you know, can we call it a Belgian beer?

Can we call it this? Well, it's not a Belgian beer because it's not made in Belgium and it's not a Trappist beer because it's not following the rules of a Trappist beer, but we can say style, it is in the style of a Belgian triple, which is a Trappist style. However, we would call this an Abbey Ale because it is not brewed by the monks, so either monastic or secular, meaning not of the monks, and this is that, it is not brewed on a monastery, so we have an Abbey style beer in the Trappist triple style fashion and it's La Fin du Monde.

You know, I, I told Jason earlier that I, I welcome all criticism on my pronunciations. It is not my, yeah, it is not my strong suit. I feel I'm better with the French and, you know, one of the tough things about Belgian beers and Belgian styles, Belgium has, you know, two national languages.

There is the south region of Wallonia that speaks French, the north region that speaks a Flemish Dutch and, you know, there's German speakers on the east and there's English is spoken in Brussels and in the capital region, so you've got all these different languages, all these different dialects, so, you know, whether it's brasserie or brasserie, you know, I go back to my seventh, eighth, ninth grade French teachers and I think, you know, I would say a brasserie, but you know what, could be dead wrong and I welcome all criticism because I'm always learning and trying to learn how to better pronunciate it, but La Fin du Monde, we can for certain say that it translates loosely or very closely, I should say, to the end of the world, La Fin, the end of du monde, the world. I am not 100% certain where they came up with this name, but one of the reasons I, I'm just going to put on it is because it is a very easy drinking nine percent beer, so after putting down some of these, it may feel like the end of the world to some of us, especially when we wake up, but I think a quick cheers.

Cheers. Is in order, let's take a sip, take a look.

Jason:

That was interesting and taking this on the nose first before I had a sip, light floral notes.

Craig:

So you are more of a Cicerone than I on this one, yes, the proper thing to do is always to try and get some of the aromatics. I just spoke for so long I wanted to wet my whistle, but yes, we want to take some of that and with the nice thing, a lot of your aromatics do come from yeast and that is a big characteristic of all Belgian beers. So let's kind of just do a quick recap of Belgian beers and Trappist and what it means to be all that.

So the Belgian culture just really focuses on well-balanced beers. You're going to find higher carbonation, bigger emphasis on Belgian yeast strains, which produce more phenolics, which are spicy notes and esters, which are more fruity notes like pear. And when I say when I said spice, I mean kind of like your clove and some of the baking spices like cardamom.

Jason:

Coriander.

Craig:

Yep. Yeah. All those good I'm getting that here.

Yes. And that even more so because of because of the style triple, but then Trappist three main things to be a Trappist beer. It's got to be on a Trappist monastery brewed under the supervision or directly by Trappist monks.

It has to be secondary. Okay. It cannot be the main focus of the monastery.

This is following the rules of St. Benedict, where, you know, you, you live a life of, you know, given to God. And this is mainly a means for funds to keep up your monastery and keep on keeping on. But then the, the last one is all the profits are to go back into the monastery and anything above and beyond what is needed to keep running the monastery would go to charity or, you know, the people within the community around the monastery.

So, you know, you don't get to make much money as a monk. And as we talked in our last episode, not a ton of monks left in this world. So even though this isn't a Trappist beer, it is a Trappist style, but it is a triple.

And, you know, what is a triple? So we talked a little bit about the Trappist styles. There's a single, double, triple, and quadruple.

So we're on the upper quartiles, the 75th percentile, if we're talking my previous life as a math teacher. But basically this means it's got higher alcohol, not necessarily, it's not triple the alcohol as a single, and it's not 75% of a quadruple. It just means that they go in order of strength.

And I brought up on the other podcast that there used to be Xs, one, two, three, and four to represent the strength. And that's kind of one of the reasons they came up with the naming convention that, you know, historians are saying, because most people are illiterate. So, you know, is it a single, double, triple?

How many Xs was it? I always go back to cartoons when I see that triple X barrel. And that's, I remember when I was a kid, I used to draw beer bottles with three Xs on it because I just remember seeing it in the cartoons.

Right, right. And then the, so a triple, it's very similar to a Belgian Golden Strong Ale. And this is where we split hairs a little bit with our styles.

And let me just put something out there. The Belgians don't really care. They don't care.

Styles are more for Americans and anyone that is hosting competitions. Because if you're given a beer, how do you compare this to something else, right? I'm not going to take this, you know, you know, slightly dark gold, delicious phenolic, ester, yeast driven, delicious Belgian style beer and put it against a crisp, clean Helles or something like a German Pils or a Czech Pilsner.

It's just, it's not fair to compare apples to oranges. So we came up with styles to kind of be able to judge and then, you know, also allow the brewer to label their beer to almost market it and let us know as consumers what we should expect. Because nothing worse than spending good money on beer and it's not what you thought it was going to be.

Maybe it exceeds expectations, but maybe it's just not what you were looking for. And, you know, we pay a little bit more emphasis on styles. So I really wanted to pick this beer because one, Unibrew, world-class brewery, again, over 400 international awards.

If you haven't had their Trois Pistoles, it's fantastic. They're out of Chambly, Quebec. They don't actually, I mean, as far as I know, because I visited Quebec and they don't have like a tap room.

They may now, I can't, you know, can either confirm or deny it, but about eight years ago when I went, I can confirm that they didn't. There was, it slips me, but there is kind of like the unofficial Unibrew bar that has the most Unibrew beers on tap in the world. And it was nice.

We went there, we spent a couple hours there, just getting some delicious food. And I got to try a ton of Unibrew beers that don't really make their way here. So La Fendoumane is probably the most known and most seen on the shelves.

We have it in a beautiful 750 milliliter bottle. It's corked in cage. This is one of those dinner party beers.

You know, you put it down, it goes well with dinner. Belgian triples should have a light golden color. One of the reasons that these started to become brewed by the Trappist monks, it's kind of two reasons.

One, the pilsner started to take over the world, which it still does, you know, lagers and pilsners, the light color golden beers. You know, almost all beers were dark hundreds of years ago. And even until, you know, until the invention of Daniel Wheeler came up with this roasting drum and it allowed us to get much lighter malts without, you know, kind of burning them.

Think about roasting coffee. He was able to do a very, very light malt and that allowed us to brew lighter beers. And with that taking over the world and people, you know, searching for these beautifully golden beers, they saw a need to brew a golden beer.

But then also, I think it was in 1919, the Vandervelde Act came about in Belgium, which basically outlawed the sell of Geneva, which was a juniper based spirit, the precursor to gin. Basically people were drinking too much. So kind of, you know, not necessarily a prohibition, but you know, we can, you know, think of it the likes of that, where they were like, no more of this.

So you're all getting stupid. Yeah. Guys are, you're drinking a little bit too much of the sauce.

So let's, let's, let's just get rid of it. And that created demand for higher ABV beers. People still wanted it.

They still look for it. So, you know, a Trappist monk being, you know, of people and selfless, you know, we can thank them. They're like, well, if you need higher alcohol beers, then we must.

And, you know, Belgian beers were on the back burner because of all these pilsners coming in. So they just thought that it would be a good time to brew a pale beer and at a higher ABV.

Jason:

And thank you monks. Leave it to the Trappist monks to be like, I, I, I, you know, if you want, you know, I guess we could make something a little stronger for you.

Craig:

You know, the rule of St. Benedict was to be welcoming, was to, you know, treat everyone as your brother. And if your brother wants to get a boozy beer, make it.

Jason:

What would you say to this? This is something that I've read in different different books and websites, et cetera, because if it's on the internet, it's probably true, right? So they used to the classic single that they, if they wanted something light after the workday to enjoy the double was something that they would serve to guests, or if they wanted something a little more hearty to go with dinner.

And then the triple came about, like you said, because it was, there was a need for something a little stronger out there. But then that gave way to the quad, which is, you know, the, the Oive of Belgian beers and Trappist beers.

Craig:

Yeah, we will, we'll dive a little bit more. We, we I've got a nice quadruple for us in the future. We'll, we'll dive into that a little bit more, but I always look at them as kind of like the brothers and sisters, right?

So a single and a triple, and they kind of just skip one, right? The single is like the baby brother or baby sister to the triple. You know, they're paler beers, light crisp, more of a focus on balance of the malt with hops and some bitterness there.

And then also with the yeast flavors. But then you've got the older siblings in the crew, that is your double and quadruple. So the double being a darker, more, you know, when we talk about those red undertones, I mean, cherry, chestnut, you name it.

And again, you know, I spoke before about, you know, how styles are more of a convention of American competitions. You know, one double does not mean that that's how all doubles and doubles should be interpreted in Belgium. They're going to brew it the way they want to brew it with ingredients that they have.

And that's what makes all of them kind of unique. So drink them all. That then goes into the quadruple.

And it's just kind of like more of an intense double, just like the triple is a more intense single. You know, that's, that's kind of how I always think of it. But yeah, you're absolutely right.

The single usually was served in the cafes. And then it was it was the table beer, you know, you think of a Belgian single or a Belgian table beer. Those were beers to be, you know, just like table wine, you know, people like what's a table beer?

Well, it's like a table wine, it's not necessarily fits any real style. It's like, hey, we made this to just have it readily available, drink it with dinners, drink it with guests. And you know, the single was a lot of times just, hey, you're sitting at our table, drink it, it's, you know, more potable than the water.

And I had touched on that before to brew beer, you got to boil it. So you can trust beer, but you can't necessarily trust that, you know, drinking fountain from the thousand year old monastery, it's probably got something in there. But the, yeah, the double was, you know, it was a heartier beer, you know, we needed something to, and I say dooble, but it's a double.

I just like saying dooble because just sounds fancy.

Jason:

I used to say it both ways, because I've heard it. I've heard it said to me both ways.

Craig:

Well, that's the you know, that's, you know, the dialect, if you ask somebody to pronounce, you know, I'm Italian. So there's plenty of people that'll chop vowels off. And you know, next thing you know, as someone to say Parmesan, and see it, see how they pronounce it.

It's, there's a million different ways, especially like I talked about all the different not only languages, but dialects. But yeah, it's a double, you know, single, double, triple, quadruple. But you know, it was meant to be a heartier, the triple, we talked about why it came about.

And then the quadruple, we'll talk a little bit more about it. But actually, the original quadruple was a Christmas beer from Chimay. And they, you know, they released it.

And they're basically just calling it a Belgian dark, strong ale. And they, you know, it's left up in interpretations, it was just, it was exactly that it was Belgian, it was dark, and it was strong. But then different people were adding different stuff.

And by people, I mean breweries. And, you know, eventually, it just was like, all right, we're going to call you the quad or quadruple, because it just kind of fit that naming convention, but not to get too far off of where we even though we have the triple here. That's what we're here to do.

You know, we're, we're barely scratching the surface, we're barely getting started here. The triple, again, meant to focus more on the paler malts be a pale beer. However, as I take another sip and another waft, you should get a lot of those esters, triples should be much more phenolic.

Again, yeasts pronounce produce two things. Outside of alcohol and CO2, they produce phenols, which means a phenolic character, or esters, which the phenols are more spice, think coriander, clove is the biggest one usually, and then cardamom, I usually get a lot. But then you have the esters, okay, some esters are banana, the you know, those are very prominent in Hefeweizen, the German yeast strains.

But then also get a lot of pear, stone fruits and stuff like that.

Jason:

So a lot of apple. So stone fruit, I'm, I'm feeling here. There you go.

Craig:

So a lot more phenolic, compared to a very similar, almost hard to determine style from it is the Belgian golden strong out. That's like Duvel, or your delirium tremens. Those beers came out, same reason, provide a higher ABV beverage when Geneva was outlawed.

And then they were to compete because almost all beer was imported at one point in Belgium, you know, it wasn't really until the 20s and 30s. You know, the 20s gave way to the double. And I think the 30s is when the triple came about.

And those were kind of like they call that the golden era of Belgian beer. Belgian beer culture has had just a terrible, terrible, just twist of fate with French Revolution, you just destroyed everything. You know, people were coming through, and they're like, Oh, look at these big copper, or look at these big steel kettles, and let's melt it down and make ammunition.

And then you know, they got smart World War One then came around after they started rebuild and kind of decimated the brewing.

Jason:

The Belgians got smart, not the French.

Craig:

Yes, yeah. The smartest they started getting was World War Two. They had built enough, you know, again, at 20s and 30s.

Now we're exporting some beer, you're getting kind of known for your beer when the 1900s, Belgian beer was swill, you would just say, this is this is basically, you know, for the farmhand, but not for anyone else. You know, this was not something that you would seek out. But by the time the 20s and 30s came, there was basically, honestly, I think it was in 1902, there was this Henry Van Leer.

He, he said, this is so bad that he hosted a competition. He wanted all the breweries to, you know, submit beers. But one of the tough things he did was he wanted to, to help boost the brewing industry, you were to provide your recipe.

And, you know, any good business owner doesn't really give away their IP, they don't want to give away the secret to the sauce, correct. So they did not really come out to the competition. So he tried it again in 1904.

He said, keep it a secret, just give us good beer, and huge reception to it. That's what kind of gave way to a lot of the styles that we started to see. Then the Trappist breweries, which were the most established breweries, they've been doing it, you know, for five, 700 years at the time, they really started to take some of these styles and fine tune them.

Jason:

Yeah, it take take a moment to process what you just said there is that in 1904, he's giving it a second shot to say, just make some good product. And then it meets with resounding results. And then, you know, we're talking now, what, 120 years ago now?

Yeah.

Craig:

So yeah, those, those 20s and 30s is kind of when they, you know, they took those new recipes, they're basically stealing every every good invention usually comes from an idea prior or need, right? There's a need for something. And there was a need for Belgium to bring out their own beer culture and style.

So with that, you had all of these interpretations, but they wanted their own flair. So using local yeast, local ingredients, again, Belgian culture, really just about balancing a beer and using what's readily available and a true artisan product. It was the brewers interpretation of what they wanted the end user to receive.

And, you know, they were unwavering in their use of what they had, they wanted to produce a beer that was different, yet, you know, special in the fact that it was so well balanced and drinkable. So 20s and 30s gave us some really good stuff, a little bit smarter by the time World War Two came around, you got some monasteries, some breweries actually buried their equipment. So you, you know, they, they had heard of what was going on with the start of World War Two.

And they were being a little bit smarter, but they had this like developed beer industry so that they could survive, you know, there was almost by that, Henry van Laer basically did CPR on the beer industry in Belgium. It was almost non-existent to the point where if he didn't host those competitions in the early 20th century there, you know, we, there may not be something that we know today as Belgian beer. So, you know, thanks, Henry, appreciate it.

And, you know, that just continued by the 80s. I believe 1980s Belgian beers were being exported to over 40 different countries. They're very ornate bottles.

Again, this one is not a Belgian beer, but a lot of Belgian beers similar to this are corked and caged or the actual, you know, we drank Orville on our last show and it was a beautiful little, call it a bowling pin style bottle. We talked about glassware that goes with the different styles to help enjoy the beer better. And, you know, the Belgian Triple being more, more phenolic than your Belgian Golden Strong Ale.

Golden Strong Ale is meant to be a little bit more crisp, a little bit more like a pilsner, where it's more, more drinkable in the sense that it doesn't weigh as heavy on your mouth. And that's why they call Duvel Duvel because it means the devil, because it sneaks up on you. You know, another 8% plus beer that, you know, drinks like a much lighter beer.

And then you have a much more emphasis on esters and a little bit more of the hops from the bittering of the beer come through because there isn't such a heavy yeast and phenolic presence as there is with the Triple. So when you taste the Triple and, you know, Westmall, Westmall was the first, some pronounce it Westmalle. So again, feel free to blow me up and tell me the correct pronunciation.

I always say Westmall, but I think it's Westmalle.

Jason:

Could be many things. I think I had a question that came up on that because I collect these different beer, well, I guess games you would say here. And I hope I'm right on this.

Yeah. What type of beer are Belgian, Westmalle and Rochefort? Trappist.

Trappist. That's the correct answer. The answers were Lambic Wit and Trappist.

And that's the correct answer. There you go. Yep.

Craig:

Those are two styles. And then Trappist is not a style. Trappist is like, you know, we talked about it.

It's a it's a designation. It's a family of styles that belong to the Trappist brewers. I get, along with the apricot notes and the stone fruit notes, a lot of banana.

You do get a lot of banana in this one. OK, that's a little bit more ester. Again, it's just based on people's palates.

Jason:

And I thought I was I thought maybe I was exaggerating on that one that maybe banana. But because when I think banana, I think Hefeweizen. Yeah.

Craig:

No, a lot of a lot of Belgian yeasts actually comes from a compound called iso-amyl acetate, I believe. Yeah, iso-amyl acetate. That's the compound that gives you the banana flavor.

So much so that, remember Runtz, the candy Runtz?

Jason:

Yes.

Craig:

There was a little banana Runtz, you know, they would break your teeth. But that banana Runtz, I think is iso-amyl acetate is the compound they used to flavor that.

Jason:

OK.

Craig:

It is heavily a banana flavor. I mean, it doesn't come across as banana-y as some Hefeweizens that I've had. Right.

But no, I mean, I'm getting the stone fruits. I just I do get a heavy banana stone fruit and then, you know, slight clove. But that's what comes from beers that have those yeast flavors.

Those yeasty flavors provide, especially if they're phenolic, they usually provide a little bit of that clove and baking spice. And depending on, you know, even how the brewer, even a few different degrees of how the brewer brews the beer, the temperature will have the yeast act differently and provide more or less of those phenols or provide less of a phenolic character or more or less of those esters.

Jason:

I like that. And so this one here we were talking, you talked earlier about food pairings. And then in our last episode, we're talking about the D'Oroval that paired nicely with seafood.

This is another example of that. Sausage with, you know, a spicy or I shouldn't say spicy sausage, like sausage with spices is also. And then it also talks about on their website that it pairs well with blue cheese, which should make that an instant buffalo hit right there.

There you go. And I got one more question for you. And I meant to bring this up in the last episode because of the way that these episodes will lay out.

But I'll give you this as a multiple choice question here. And it says, what is celebrated on the first Friday in the month of August? Is it International Beer Day?

Is it the patron saint of brewers or the day of the unknown drinker?

Craig:

That is a good one. I'm just going to have to go with A, just because I've heard of International Beer Day, but I have not heard of the other two. That's right.

That's a correct answer.

Jason:

Go with what you know. The first episode, well, this one will fall in mid-August, but the first episode will fall on August the 3rd, which means two days prior was International Beer Day. But I thought that would be a fun little trivia question I pulled up.

And I forgot to pull it out in the first episode.

Craig:

Always excited when people pull them out.

Jason:

Yeah. All right. Well, Craig, thank you very much.

We're going to finish what we've got here because this is muy delicioso. I know that's not French, but... Close enough.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, you know, rocking my Spanish here for, or the rough Spanish that I'm trying to learn.

And then we will talk to you all on our next episode in two weeks. And in the meantime, we want to thank you for listening and stay with us because we're barely getting started. That's right.

I wish I had a... No, that's not the one. That's it.

There it is right there. Yeah. Thanks, Craig.

Absolutely. Cheers.