Westmalle Brewery (a beer geek's guide to Trappist Beer ep 5)
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- čas přidán 2. 08. 2024
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This week we're look at the rich history and iconic beers of Westmalle Brewery - creator of the Tripel, enablers of Westvleteren and former home of some irrepressible monks
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ERROR ALERT! For no reason at all we said Westmalle Extra is 5.5% but it's 4.8%. Sorry.
'If monking was easy anyone would be a monk' - quote of the year so far!
Went out with my dad to my local craft beer pub, and reached out to get the Westmalle tripel which we have never tried before. We have had many tripels before but Westmalle was recently brought in. The bartender told us, "this is not a beer, it is history in a bottle". After this video, I think I should've given my bartender a bigger tip. I love beer history, keep making these kind of videos!!
Glad you like them! More to come for sure
This Trappist series is pure gold! Thank you!! 🍻
“Back on our Trappist bullshit” that was an amazing attempt to be hip and cool and it made me belly laugh in the bathroom at work😂
Yep - heard it coming out and knew it was wrong. To funny to edit out though.
The dubbel is the OG of great beer. My mother used to drink this on the weekend (special weekends). For me I associate it with a great time. Everytime I order / buy one I think of her and it feels like instant joy.
Being so close to Malle (
Westmalle Tripel is just so good and dangerously easy drinking
Westmalle Dubbel has become my traditional accompaniment to Christmas Dinner. That dried fruit/fig/plum character works so well.
A great choice! I sometimes have the Tripel.
I love the colour of the Dubbel, it's so attractive, great tasting.
Westmalle Dubbel was on tap on the day I graduated high school. Needless to say, it knocked me out after having a bit too many of them. I still love all their beers to this day.
Hazy days!
Thanks!
loved the history bits
Years ago, it had to be in the early aughts, it was when I was really getting into beer. The beer store I was going to actually gave me a free bottle of Westmalle Tripel. At the time I had been patronizing the store for about 4 or 5 years and the owner simply gave me a gift. Back then I was on RateBeer a lot and it really helped my journey.
Great video guys! The history of Trappist beer and belgian beer in general is really something special :)
Great brewery! Love their beer and all Belgian beers
Your videos are some of the best on You Tube and Brad is a legend 😀
No way! I received these three Westmalle beers as part of a gift set and decided to open the Extra tonight. I was going to watch one of your other Trappist beer videos and then saw this was just uploaded. Perfect timing
thank you so much for doing this series
You are so welcome! Going to take a little break from them then return with the lesser known ones in the Autumn I think
The Westmalle Extra I'm drinking right now in Belgium is 4.8% alc
Yep we were idiots when filming.
I've been a fan of Westmalle for years, but you added layers of complexity to their story. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Yay Westmalle, was wandering when you will cover this. Great content as usual!
Glad you enjoyed it!
A few cheers to the best beer ever created for me 🍻🤟🏼 Love and Beer
I like me a good Westmalle doubel and tripel! The 3rd one in always wins me over. The more I drink the more I like them!
You guys should try Nemus Mariae. It's an Abbey beer from the ex Trappist monastery Mariawald in Germany (border Belgium)..Try against Westmalle Tripel.
Orval has open brewery once a year I think. I think that's it.
I wish you all the luck in the world with that endeavour :)
"Napoleon closes down all the monasteries" - That is one way of putting it :p
Keep on monkin' !!!
Westmalle Tripel is definitely the king of tripels. My favourite Belgian beer to get if I have to choose one.
Tripel is certainly in the top list. I am not a fan of the dubbel, as I find it too sweet and malty.
Had to laugh, watching this an ad break came up for Coors " beer" 😂😂😂😂😂
Always my first beer when get to belgium, it's a top brew....
I’m perfectly happy with Allagash Tripel and Troegs La Grave.
I was pretty shocked to see a Westmalle tripel in Morrisons the other day! I of course bought all of them!
Westmalle Trippel = world’s best beer.
Münster is in fact one of the most catholic cities in Germany, it was a protestant city for a short time in the 16th century, but then the church tortured and killed the protestant rebels in the marketplace. Afterwards the bodies of the rebels were displayed in cages, hanging from the steeple of one on Münster’s many churches. The cages are still hanging there today.
Wow this is a real surprise! I'd have assumed all Germany that far north was protestant. It's not a million miles from Einbeck, whose famous bock bier was not served in Bavaria because it was protestant brewed. Thanks for the info!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Yeah, it's the only city like this in the area.
Extra is in my opinion the best on a abv versus flavor scale
There is a place in the south of Brussels which does a big bubbly Dubbel on tap. The locals call it a 'vitamientje' which is hopefully self explanatory and also gloriously appropriate. Why would you not want to spend your life walking into your local for a vitamientje and getting this?
Here in Eastern Canada we can get Westmalle Dubbel fairly regularly, but that's about it. About once a year the local beer czars will bring in Chimay(the usual white, red and blue) or St. Bernardus abt12, tripel or wit, but outside of that, not much. Was in Quebec and gladly picked up some St. Bernardus Pater 8, which we never see here.
One local brewery here started out making nothing but German and Belgian style beers, and made a set of 4 based on Belgian standards (Blonde, Dubbel, Tripel and Quad) all were fantastic, but didn't sell that well apparently has they have never made them since. They do better with the German Styles, but have had to fall back on the pale ale and IPA wagon to makes ends meet, which is sad.
A story as old as time sadly. Even more obvious in the UK because Belgian beers are so easy to get hold of.
I knew they shipped a large volume but their production capacity is astonishing, and when you look at the quality you wonder how they do it and why others can't do the same. Specially since they could easily halve the volume and increase the cost 5 fold and people would still buy at least the Tripel: it would just become a whale.
Haha well they would never do that - part of the philosophy is to be as honest as possible in their work, hence why Westvleteren work so hard to prevent the grey market. I think a lot of it is what we talked about regarding profits episode - they are all invested inwards, but not towards expansion. So the attention to detail and quality is second to none. That said, I did once have an Orval that hadn't been dosed with Brett.
What a nice banana double table beer!
Oh god. What have we done.
Monkin’ ain’t easy 🍻
Hi guys, I just love the series. Question, will there also be an episode about La Trappe? Hope so. As a Dutchman not at all biased 🙃🍻
Absolutely!
Super stoked to try the dubbel together with the Rochefort 8, which I randomly found at a local taproom! Anything else you would suggest to add to the Belgian beer list? I should be able to get my hands on some Duvel and Chimay bottles!
Oh lord! So many! Of what's easily available get hold of anything from St Bernardus
@@TheCraftBeerChannel well, I haven't seen any yet...but I'll keep my eyes peeled! Anyway, thanks a lot for the "hops of material" you have here...I recently got into craft and I learned soooo much binging on your channel! Cheers!
6:46 i dont know...in the US a 5.5% beer would be considered a low alcohol beer too in my xp... practically anything worth drinkign is over 5% and is usually in the 5-7% range - could be a fault of the dominance of IPA styles in the craft scene
America and Belgium are the outliers in this regard - the other great brewing nations like the UK, Germany, Czechia all drink mostly beer below 5%. It's harder to make delicious beer below 5% but it is eminently possible!
Had to rewind the video to check whether Jonny really said 'Trappist bullshit'. 😂 And don't worry, Westmalle Extra is 'only' 4.8%, or as I am calling 4.8% from now on: 'Belgian low-alcohol'.
You're right... I'm not sure how we got confused there!
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Didn't mean to put you on the spot like that, sorry. I was too fascinated with the Trappist bullshit and Belgian low-alcohol comments to actually notice it. Nitpicking on errors in other people's work is lazy and would be very undeserved. Thank you for another great beer history lesson! Cheers!
@@FatherEarth93 not at all! Thanks for pointing it out!
YMCA in steel toe caps, best line ever, is it because they went west earlier, or because they were looking for the Navy?
What's the book's year edition?
Tripel excellent, but Extra not worth bottling.
As far as I know, Westvleteren uses the same yeast.
It is! We mention it here and in our video about Westvleteren.... czcams.com/video/H-5bckMwP-M/video.html
I thought the brewdio was redundant. It's not been on a video for awhile. I assume to do with winter and no heating?
We were there two weeks ago! It's got heating - not very good heating - but we have beer jackets too
@@TheCraftBeerChannel must have missed that one. All the recent ones I recall have had a bar in the background. Haven't had as much time to watch things recently due to sorting out a concrete base for a new garage for a large brewing area. Been a nightmare, getting three phase electricity, moving gas mains and breaking existing drains (by accident) and shifting 32 ton of soil.
I am always wondering how many bottles you use to make the shots, you always put more beer in a glass for the close up shot than what you are drinking and it is bothering me every time ^^' ... Anyway great video and best Triple in the world in my opinion! Cheers!
For more delicious slowmo!!!
Brad looks like a radical monk that is trying to bring Jonny to the dark side
Haha slightly different headwear though
Keep on monkin' 👼🐵
That poster that is not centered is driving me crazy.
We're phishing for comments with it.x
Why are you guys shaking the beer at 11:40 ?
Because the aroma of beer, like all alcoholic drinks, is mostly made up of volatile compounds that when swirled escape the liquid. So we're helping the aroma get out of the liquid and into the headspace of the glass.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Is'nt it bad for the carbon dioxide though?
@jobdeboer7886 not really. You wouldn't do it to many times, and we don't do it unless we are analysing a beer, but it won't knock much out
@@TheCraftBeerChannel okay thank you!
I am sorry guys, I don't get their triple. Triples are not for me I guess. But their dubel is a beer I'll prefer to many-many beers.
DOn't be sorry! Drink what you enjoy!
Kastel Tripel was much much better IME. Westtmale was way to bitter, more bitter than most bitter IPA ... Maybe I got a strange bottle ...
Hmmm it's definitely not a bitter beer - IBUs would be well below a West Coast IPA. It could have been yeast bite and a bad bottle, but hard to know!
Everyone praises the the Belgian brewing tradition but the hops here are English-Slovenian and Czech/Bohemian, respectively. Very Belgian indeed. The beers taste great, so who cares? Well, that's fine, just don't try to claim that the Belgian brewing tradition is somehow more venerable than the American, British, Czech or German. Tthe Extra has very little flavor relative to its strength compared to many English real ales. Some of the best beers I've ever tasted have been real ales at 4.3-4.7% abv. Btw, as a side-note, Chimay blue is not the world's best beer, it's the world's most overrated beer.
"Balanced" is the most over-rated term in craft beer.
Have you seen our video about that very topic? czcams.com/video/IQaDduQRI-M/video.html
@@TheCraftBeerChannel Actually yes but I had forgotten about. I definitely agree.