A new and relatively cheap Abbey beer has made its way onto a couple of bottleshop shelves. I’ve never seen it in a Belgian Beer Cafe in Australia and not even at Beer Mania in Beijing which had the best collection of Belgian beers I’ve seen in a pub.
Grimbergen claims impressive heritage – 1128 – on its labelling and claims to be an Abbey beer. Its website is in Belgian I think, and talks about a resurrection. After a series of takeovers and it is now ultimately owned by a Carlsberg and Heineken consortium. Grimbergen is no longer brewed in an abbey, and does not have a continuous brewing history since 1128, which would have been impressive. That said, whilst Carlsberg and Heineken wouldn’t appear to be the best owners of an Abbey style beer, who’s ever brewing this stuff now is allowed to do a good job.
Grimbergen Dubbel isn’t as full bodied as a Rochefort 6, but it is still quite chunky. A little sweet for mine, but plenty going on and the contract brewers are doing fine. So for a cheaper version of Belgian chunky – give it a go.
PS: Like Virgin Blue, BotF has had its second software malfunction and the E-Mail will be discontinued until further notice. Apologies again.
back of the ferry 