Beer Discovery: La Trappe Quadrupel Oak Aged Series

Beer(s): Quadrupel Oak Aged
Brewery: Koningshoeven (La Trappe)
Country: Netherlands
Style: Quadrupel
ABV: 11%

The La Trappe Oak Aged Quadruples are in my opinion some of the best beers that the Netherlands has to offer!

In 2009 the monks at the Koningshoeven Monastery and Brewery started aging their La Trappe Quadrupel in Barrels (or Barriques), and have since then produced 19 batches of La Trappe Oak Aged. The Koningshoeven is also a fully certified Trappist Brewery, one of two in the Netherlands.

Enjoying a Batch #18! (4.5/5*)

Batches are blended multiple times a year, and as such this beer enjoys a consistent release but ever changing taste palette. Once a new blend is created, production of the previous stops, making each La Trappe Oak Aged Quadrupel a collectors item in its own right.

With each blend, the quadruple is interred into barrels (or Barriques) with specific properties. For example the Batch #14's blend consisted of: Acacia Wood (7%), New Oak Barrels (11%) and Limousine Barrels with Cognac (82%). Each Batch has a particular theme, for example with 82% Cognac Barrels, the Batch #14's taste is strongly influenced by Cognac.

Enjoying the #14! (5/5*)

Unfortnately, the La Trappe Oak Aged beers do not come cheap. When a new batch is released they are reasonable priced, at least at the brewery. However, since batches are only created once, and the fact that the beer can be further aged on the bottle for many years causes earlier batches to come with a significant price tag. I recently came across the batch #12 which was priced at €25 (could have been a lot worse).

€100 of Batch #12, Yes this happened :P (4.5/5*)

The most recent batch to be released, as i am writing this, is the batch #19. This batch is aged on dessert wine and should be very interesting to drink. I recently paid a visit to the Koningshoeven Brewery and bought myself a bottle of the batch #19,  I'm planning on drinking it this weekend (if i can resist my temptation for that long).

Oak Aging, with a little Divine Intervention (Source: La Trappe)

If you ever have the opportunity to try one of these awesome beers, i highly recommend it!

Cheers!

P.S. I did not get the opportunity for a brewery tour when i was visiting the Koningshoeven, so a blog post will have to wait until i have had the opportunity to do so.

Beer Discovery: Royal Virility Performance

Beer: Royal Virility Performance
Brewery: Brewdog
Country: Scotland
Style: IPA
ABV: 7.5%

Royal Virility Performance is a limited edition Brew (2011) to celebrate the marriage between Prince William and Kate Middleton. But this isn't your average commemorative beer….

"A beer to stir the lions of newlywed princes and cure the stammer of stuttering kings"

and to

"Celebrate Big Willy Style"

RVP is brewed to give the happy couple something "extra big" on their wedding night, and with a name such as Royal Virility Performance i think the message is quite clear. Brewdog states that the beer contains viagra and other aphrodisiacs to boost the "performance" of the drinker, and caused quite big stir upon its release.

Is Royal Virility Performance the cause?

"Arise Prince Willy.."

Whilst the beer does not contain the full strength regular viagra, it does contain the herbal viagra variant together with some other "stimulating" herbs and a good dose of sarcasm. If you are reading this, and thinking that your search for beer that will boost your sexual performance is over, i must disappoint you. Although a great concept, and reason for a laugh, the beer really does nothing to help you out there. In fact, having too many of these will probably do the opposite.

Enjoying a RVP, no side effects experienced

I had heard of this beer before, but had much given up ever coming across it short of ordering it online. Therefore i was pleasantly surprised when i came across this at a pub in my hometown. It wasn't cheap however, being a limited edition beer in 2011 with only 1000 bottled, and it now being 2015, i did have to pay a significant price for a performance boost. However I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about.

Big Willy

I quite enjoyed this beer: herbal, spicy and IPA goodness. This beer probably tasted a bit different from the original, having aged three years, but still tasted fine. The fact that i was so surprised to find this beer, and that i was quite drunk at the time, probably contributed to my appreciation of the taste.

If you ever come across one of the rare remaining bottles i highly recommend you to also "Celebrate Big Willy Style"

My Rating 4.5 / 5

Cheers!

Brewery Visit: Van Moll

Brewery: Van Moll
City: Eindhoven
Country: The Netherlands

A while ago i visited the Van Moll Brewery and Brewpub, and had an absolutely fantastic time! The great thing about this brewery visit was the fact that it wasn't planned, at least not by me.

We were going to attend a soccer game that day, arriving earlier to spend some time in the city beforehand. My girlfriend wanted to do some shopping and told me she had heard of a nice pub we would visit afterward (it made the shopping a lot more bearable :P). I had never heard of Van Moll prior to walking through its front door, where i was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was both a brewery and a stylish/modern brewpub!

Brewery & Brewpub Van Moll (Source: Van Moll)

The brewery is run by Jaap and Erwin, who opened the brewery in 2013 as the first brewpub in Eindhoven. Underneath the pub is the brewery, which customers can observe through glass windows (as can be seen on the above pictures, top middle). The brewery isn't large, but Jaap and Erwin do brew quite a number of different beers both for consumption in the pub and for limited distribution (their beers have recently started appearing in the city where i live). Van Moll brews 11 beers all year around, with a number of experimental or limited time brews also available during the year.

Enjoying a Van Moll Schobbejak 

Off course, when visiting a brewery its near heresy to not try some of their beers, why wouldn't you? its the best place to drink them!. I really liked the Van Moll beers which i tried (Eenvoud 4*, Toewijding 4*, Schobbejak 3.5* and D.A.F. 4* respectively), the atmosphere might have contributed to this but they were very pleasant to drink. Furthermore, you are by no means limited to drinking their own brews, Van Moll has a wide selection of specialty beers available.

Enjoying a Toewijding (Dedication)

All in all: Great beer, great atmosphere, great pub, great location and one of the two owners that i talked to was very nice. It was a great place to get into the mood to watch some soccer and drink some very nice beers.

If you are ever in Eindhoven, I highly recommend paying a visit to this awesome brewpub and brewery!

Cheers!

Brewery Website: http://vanmolleindhoven.nl