Westvleteren XII

Reasons I brought back the blog:

Part I: Westvleteren XII

I’m not a religious man. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t believe in the afterlife, or reincarnation, or any of that stuff. In fact, the only reason I even bring this up, is because this blog - the resurrection of this blog, as it were - is about to take on a very religious tone. In the coming paragraphs I will be using terms like ‘pilgrimage to mecca’ and ‘spiritual awakening’. Not because I have suddenly found religion, or a new lease of life, but rather because the parallels between religious terminology and the journey I just undertook are simply too easy to pass up. And when you love the glory that is lazy writing as much as I do, ‘too easy to pass up’ is your best friend and saviour.

Glory? Saviour? See, it’s begun already.

So, if this blog is going to take on a religious note, we might as well start off by talking about monks. Now, I’m sure most people are familiar with what a monk is, generally speaking, but let’s go over the Cliff’s Notes, just so that we’re on the same page. The basic idea behind monkhood (monkness?) is to live a life with a complete abstinence from worldly pleasures. Monks eschew the very notion of modern convenience and, to put it in delicate terms, sins of the flesh. And, because the world is full of temptations, monks often live together, spending most of their lives at a monastery in prayer and contemplation, believing that this is the best way to serve God and achieve inner peace.

They also brew beer.

This is where I come in. I may not be a monk, but I sure do enjoy a good, malty libation. Now, having read my brief synopsis of monkdom (monkery?) you might think that it would be strange that monks - having given up all worldly pleasures - would still imbibe the greatest worldly pleasure of them all. And while a bunch of monks brewing and drinking beer does seem a little hypocritical, in the spirit of this new religious themed blog, I’m going to do my best not to judge. All I want is to sample some of the very best beer on the planet: monk beer. That said, the thing about the monks is that they don’t need, or want money. They live a simple lifestyle and turning a profit isn’t exactly high on their parchment. In fact, many monks only brew just enough beer to quench their own thirst, and might sell whatever they have left over to pay the bills and help keep the abbey lights on. And, even though it’s slightly disappointing to think that they even use lights at all, when candles would seem so much more monkly (monkish?), all of this is why, instead of heading down to my local Liquor Barn, I had to come all the way to Belgium.

You see, the monks at an Abbey called Saint Sixtus, in the West-Flanders region of Belgium, brew a beer that many consider to be the very best in the world. And, while many of the best beers in the world can be easily tracked down at your local bottle shop, the only way to get your hands on a bottle of Westvleteren XII - the notorious flagship beer that is produced within the walls of Saint Sixtus - is to go to the monastery and knock on the abbey doors yourself.

Let’s just stop here for a second and consider that last sentence. You go to the monastery and knock on the abbey doors, and they will sell you a case of the greatest beer in the world…

Is that not the most amazing thing in the history of things?! What self-respecting beer enthusiast would not be instantly enamoured with every single word in that scenario? Well, unfortunately for yours truly, a man with dreams of one day knocking on the abbey door himself, many, many people did become instantly enamoured with that scenario, and as word got out and the legend grew, more and more people wanted to see just what all of the fuss was about. I mean, just envision every hipster you’ve even known. Now imagine telling them that there was a rare beer, considered to be the best in the world, but that they couldn’t have any. There is nothing a hipster loves more than to have tried and appreciated something that most ordinary folks have not. Getting their hands on a bottle of Westvleteren would be akin to having been a fan of Nirvana before they were famous. Any beer fan worth their weight in hops had to be able to say that they loved Westvleteren before anyone else. As such, many people started making the trek.

In spite of the increased interest, the monks still had no desire to increase production, or sell their product commercially. But, as the line ups of flannel-clad, bearded men, wearing plastic-rimmed glasses began to grow, they were forced to adapt. A reservation system has since been put in place, where you phone a special hot line, reserve a time and date, and come get your beer from the abbey at the scheduled time. The supply is still very limited, and getting through on the phone line is almost as statistically unlikely as winning the lottery, but no matter how you try to justify it, the new process just isn't nearly as cool as the old way of just showing up at the abbey, knocking twice on the door and walking away with the holy grail of beers. That said, it’s still pretty cool. And I still like beer. So, even though some of the sexiness of the journey is gone, it’s still a journey that I’ve been interested in undertaking ever since the dawn of time. And by ‘dawn of time’ I mean when Randy brought the whole thing to my attention last spring. Sorry, I know, I’m a terrible hipster to even admit that I was blissfully unaware of this beer’s existence a mere 12 months ago… but hey, I didn’t know who Nirvana was until Smells Like Teen Spirit came out either.

Long-story-short, today I made the pilgrimage to the abbey.

Was it as glorious as I ever could have imagined? Well, yes and no. First of all, the drive  to the abbey is very cool. Little side roads that feel like they might actually be a person's driveway. And then suddenly an unassuming monastery, not unlike any of the many others scattered across the land, and certainly not one that you would expect to find a world class beer being brewed in it's basement. So far, the trek was fully living up to the vision in my head. Having been unable to get through on the phone line, the only other chance that I would have to sample this glorious beverage was going to be at the restaurant across the street - the only place in the world outside of the abbey that is officially allowed to sell the beer (although plenty of bottles find their way onto the 'grey market'.)

Then, my first disappointment came. Straight out of the pages of a super cliched movie script, the grey clouds opened up and an ominous and depressing rain began to sheet down across the country side. The good lord had deemed me unworthy of his finest creation, and saw to it that the gift shop had not a single bottle for sale. Which is a shame, as from all accounts, the gift shop was a pretty surefire way to get at least a six pack, with most people claiming that they only ran out of stock on a few rare occasions. But, I guess this was one of them. And now I was not going to have any XII to bring back to share with friends and fellow beer lovers, which is a damn shame, as it would definitely have been a fun way of sharing the trip with those back home.

But, the good news is that the restaurant itself still always has enough in stock to allow people to order a pint on site. So, I hadn't come all this way for nothing after all. I was still able to try all three of the varieties that the abbey brews, all of it about as fresh from the barrel as humanly possible.

Which, I hate to say, brings us to the second disappointment of the day. I didn't love it. In fact, I barely even liked it. Yes, it's complex as hell, full of flavour, and smells magical. But it's just not my cup of tea. If I had tried it randomly at a bar, I would have enjoyed it well enough, sure, but I doubt I would even bothered to make a mental note to order it again the next time that I came back. Obviously, it probably never could have lived up to the hype, regardless, but I'm still a little sad that it wasn't instantly the best beer I had ever tasted. It almost makes me wonder if I have a proper beer palette, or if the beer community just loves to rave about it because it is so rare and difficult to obtain. The thing is, it's not like I don't enjoy the trappist style of beer. But I still think I prefer St. Bernardus 12 or Rochefort 10 to the Westvleteren. Which, seeing that both of those beers are much easier to track down back home, might be a good thing, even if it costs me all of my hipster cred.

Either way, I guess I didn't see the light of God the moment the sweet nectar touched my lips, which means that my life and this blog can return to their secular ways. Can I get an Amen?