Delirium Tremens

Brewed by Brouwerij Huyghe
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Melle, Belgium

Draft at Thorups Kælder. Big, creamy white head with fair lacing. Yellow, light cloudy body. Nice malt aroma of grain and hay. Fruity. It has a medium body, and a creamy texture, some bitter finish. Good flavor, medium sweet and medium bitter.

330ml bottle (St. Urho’s, Helsinki)
Gold, healthy self-supporting head. Sweet fruity and peppery hop aroma. Soft palate, light carbonation. Fruity and light taste, sweet and estery. Some hops too, and a bit of banana yeastiness and toffee. Then more noble hops. Long finish. Can’t quite hide the 8.5%, but it’s not a boozy drink at all. Solid strong Belgian.

0.33 l bottle. Slightly hazy peach color with small head. Tart fruit, phenols, orange and herbal hops in the aroma. Orange, pineapple, grapefruit, phenols, herbal hops, firm bitterness and sharp alcohol in the flavor. Sweet initially but finishes dry. A bit too sharp flavor.

I had never heard of Delirium until I visited California. I ended up enjoying quite a few during my visit.

Golden beer with ample white head. Has little aroma other than some pear and spice. Taste is somewhat intese with pear, banana and clove. Notable alcohol flavor, too. Finishes appropriately dry. Good, but not $5 a bottle good.

On tap at The Happy Gnome in St. Paul, MN. Color is golden, with frothy white head. Aroma of pear, citrus, and tart apple. Taste is very sweet, tart, and slightly sour, with fizzy mouthfeel. Good, but not great.

Cloudy golden color with white two finger head. Cool ceramic bottle with pink elephants. Aroma is very bready and yeasty. Lots of fruits in the aroma also, some pear and citrus. Flavor is quite dry and was somewhat unsuspected from the aroma. Some spice is also in the flavor. Very carbonated. Overall a very nice beer.

This is actually the second time I’ve tried this one. The first time, I came away strangely confused and unsatisfied by it, but after seeing an ad in All About Beer magazine hailing it “the world’s most perfect beer,” I knew I needed to give it another shot. I call it the John Coltrane of beers – keep listening (or, in our case, sipping), and eventually you hear what it’s trying to tell you. This beer refuses to give away all its secrets to just anyone at anytime. It plays hard-to-get, but keep after it and it will reveal its sultry passion. It’s a bitter Belgian Strong Ale. Not a white beer (a la Hoegaarden), nor a Trappist (dubbel or otherwise), nor even a Saison…yet distinctly Belgian all the same. Those three different yeast strains really do a number on it, and I must say it’s among the most complex brews I’ve had. I would go out on a hunch and say try it with spicy Thai or Vietnamese. Or maybe game bird in a dark sauce. Me, I had it on its own. It paired extremely well with the billiard cue I had in the other hand.