Sponsored Post:
The Rare Beer Club periodically offers current members an exclusive special offer featuring up to four beers. The latest such offer includes the following four beers:
1) Rodenbach Vintage 2012 (Each bottle signed by brewer) – RateBeer 99
2) Fantome Hiver (Winter Saison) – RateBeer 97
3) Blaugies La Moneuse Special Winter Ale – RateBeer 97
4) Mikkeller Winbic (barrel aged, blended lambic) – RateBeer 92
Not a member yet? Please learn more about the club here & join. You will have to do so first before becoming eligible for the beers included in this special offer. The Bruery 8 Maids-A-Milking and Toccalmatto Zona Cesarini are the most recently featured beers in the club and should still be available so this is a good month to join!
Once you are a member (or if you are already), abbreviated info on this month’s special beers below….
Important: You must place the special offer order through this link before noon PST on Friday, December 4th. FULL info on these beers at that link as well.
Mikkeller Winbic: Mikkeller’s Winbic is a blend of the brewery’s Spontanale and Saison, resulting in what we found to be a fresher fit for the holiday season. While the alcohol level is on the modest side, the profile here is super ideal for serving during big family meals: bubbly effervescence, tons of peppery spice and lightly acidic nuance without weighing down the palate, and, ultimately, a beautiful dry and toasty core at the center of things. Crisp, palate-refreshing, simply perfect for alongside dishes like roasted turkey and ham, and still a bunch more details beyond that.
Rodenbach Vintage 2012: Brewmaster Rudi Ghequire was kind enough to personally sign each bottle that we’re importing of Vintage 2012 as a thank-you specifically to you, our Rare Beer Club members. The result of more than two years of aging under Rudi’s watchful eye, Rodenbach Vintage is unique among Rodenbach’s beers as it is drawn exclusively from one foeder. In the case of this release, it’s lucky barrel number 170, which had been maturing since 2012. Each foeder is its own ecosystem, a mixture of yeasts, funky bacteria, and old wood saturated by the devil’s cut of every beer that came before – which, with as much as 150 years of age on each foeder, is a very long list. When crafting their more common beers, Rodenbach’s brewers blend threads of aged beer from multiple foeders with various quantities of young beer to arrive at a finished product that is remarkably consistent month to month, year to year, decade to decade.
Blaugies La Moneuse Special Winter Ale: Brasserie de Blaugies brews a few beers, one of them a classic Saison (farmhouse ale) called La Moneuse, which is named for A. J. Moneuse (b. 1768), a famous local bandit and gang leader, and ancestor of the brewers’ family. La Moneuse Special Winter Ale is a heartier, slightly less earthy version of that beer. Be sure to chill this one down, and pour gently.
Fantome Hiver (Winter Saison): Fantôme’s brewer Dany Prignon takes a particular approach to the brewing process, and his beers are renowned for varying from season to season. It was exciting for us to get to sample some early bottles of this latest batch, and we’d expected it was going to be an experience. In sampling last year’s aged batch for some first notes, we were struck by just how much Hiver from last season had developed in the bottle—adding on layers of herbaceous, funky depth.