Tre Amigos

Palate Wrecking Tasting at the International Beer Shop

Yesterday, YM, RS and myself headed down to the International Beer Shop to partake in our last IBS tasting before we head of to Europe, and from the facebook invite, we knew we were in for a real treat. At first, when I was invited to the event, I thought the beers would most likely be hop forward, double IPA’s, or something along those lines.

What amazed me was the fact that Luke (the manager) chose significantly different beers, but still managed to relate them to the theme of the tasting. We started off by being presented with tasting notes, which is a great accompaniment to the beers, and allows you to digest the background information as well as the beer at the same time. Don’t you find it’s great to have the tasting notes all written up, so that it’s much easier to reminisce about all the awesome beers and flavours? I throughly enjoy reflecting on a good beer with even more of it.

So onto the beers. In order of tasting they were:

1. Cantillon Gueuze
2. Moylan’s Moylander Double IPA
3. North Coast Old Stock Ale 2012
4. Mikkeller 1000IBU
5. Mikkeller Black Hole

After tasting these beers (we’ve tried the Moylander DIPA but are yet to review it), we decided our two three favourite beers of the afternoon were the Black Hole Stout, the Gueuze and the Old Stock Ale. For both YM and myself, that was the first time we’ve tried a gueuze, and found it to be awesome, it was a lovely balance between sour and tart and really easy to drink. We can’t wait to head to Cantillon when we get to Brussels and sample the rest of their amazing beers (yumm!!).

The Old Stock Ale was full of caramel, sweetness (even a bit of hazelnut) and it surprisingly masked its massive ABV really well. I was a bit worried to be honest about the Old Stock Ale, because my last barleywine, the Bigfoot was really quite overwhelming and overpowering, but I found the Old Stock Ale to be really quite mellow and subdued in comparison.

Lastly, the Black Hole Stout. Wow. Just wow. I can’t remember ever trying a beer that is just so well balanced, and keeps you coming back for more after every sip. There was a point I actually had to stop myself from having any more, because of the monstrous ABV of 13.1%. It had amazingly creamy flavours, with loads of coffee, cocoa, and an amazingly sweet almost liqueur like finish. This is a beer to go out of your way for and I urge anyone who is yet to try it to go out and save a bottle for a cold winter’s night. It really is on another level in terms of awesomeness.

Thanks once again to the IBS for putting on a sweet tasting, and if you’re in Perth and are yet to head along, be sure to mark the next one in your diary!

JG