The beers of FUTENMA: St. Bernardus Abt 12. and lets try it: NISSIN U.F.O BIG

Today I have a combined review. Both are things I have had before, but friends on facebook have suggested I review. Those things are St. Bernardus Abt 12 and NISSIN U.F.O BIG.

Part of why I'm combining these reviews is my unfortunate first time drinking Abt 12. I had gotten sick from some bad food I had eaten and had to "un-eat" so to say. I was still queasy and could not hold down solid food, liquids on the other hand I could handle just fine. If you see were this is going, go ahead and face palm while I explain to the less savvy readers. So I decided to pop the top on that Abt 12 I had, a beer that is 750ml and 10% alcohol by volume. After I finished the bottle I found I needed to "un-drink" the beer. I cannot imagine why my judgement would lapse to such a degree as to cause me to do this, I cannot even fathom the rationale, and I'm the one who did it. After that I went to bed, sicker than ever, head spinning, and trying to piece together why I would make such an obviously bad decision. This is not a beer to be had without food, not that any beer is. So the Japanese freeze dried yakisoba noodles are a precaution. I clearly enjoyed how it tasted, I probably would not finish the bottle if I didn't. But this time I may not finish it, at the very least I will be pacing myself.
So lets introduce these consumables in a less vulgar manner. U.F.O BIG, It's a little more involved to prepare than regular instant yakisoba, but it tastes good, it's filling, and it's cheap. It comes in a Styrofoam square bowl, so when it's little comic style instructions say not to microwave it, you'd better listen.

The instructions are pretty dummy proof, with a simple 1,2,3 instructions and pictures to match.

So I heat up some water

and go to number 1

Inside is the same dried vegitables you find in other yakisoba, but the seasonings for this one are different. there is a small seasoning packet with you're general dried herb mix, in the big one is a black (really just a very dark brown) liquid sauce you pour over the noodles when you drain the water.
Once you're water is hot, you fill it to the little internal lip and wait for it to soften.

While we wait for that we'll start on the St. Bernardus abt 12.St. Bernardus brewery is located in Watou Belgium and produces Trappist styled beers, although not a true Trappist brewery as it is not located inside a monastery. St. Bernardus continues to brew the same beers that they produced while under contract with the St. Sixtus monastery, which ended the contract after the 1992 decision to more strictly define Trappist beer. St. Sixtus runs a rather small operation, and only produces as much beer as is needed to run the monastery and donate to charities. The Abt 12 is a clone of the St. Sixtus Westvleteren 12, and is a quaduple abby ale. The beer is corked much like a Champagne bottle, with a metal keeper you need to untwist and remove before nerve wrackingly popping the cork.

Going back to the U.F.O Big, it is time to drain

After it's drained you add the seasonings and mix it up with you're sticks.

THEN YOU FEAST!

If you've ever had chow mein, that's exactly what this tastes like. That's all there really is to say about it flavor wise.
On to the beer. I remove the metal keeper and warn my roommate that I'm about to pop the cork. This turns us both into little girls afraid of a piece of  bark flying out of a bottle. The bottle finally erupts with a defining POP! and the cork goes flying.

Nose wise, it smells like you would expect an ale to from the bottle. I'm going to pour it into the Rochefort goblet (I described it in a previous blog, it's nice) and see how it heads.

It has dark amber color and moderately heavy beige head. The head has some staying power, I bite out a mouthful of bubbles and find it has an apple taste, you can't really taste the alcohol but you can sense it's presence. Now to get to the beer proper. I put on some James Brown to drown out the world so I can focus on the taste and have a sip. It's fruity, this is another one of those beers that is more like wine than it is beer, kind of like the Rochefort this goblet came with. Providence I suppose. This does not taste like figs, in case you were wondering. This one has an apple and grape taste, kind of like those weird Grapples you see at the grocery store (Who says genetically modified organisms are bad?). Technically those apples are not GMO's but apples soaked in a solution to make them taste like a concord grape, but I digress. It has a very mild acidity to it, not at all unpleasant. Even though the beer masks the alcohol quite a bit, I can taste it on my breath, this is a beer to be careful with, especially in its sizable quantity that you cannot reseal for later.
 My regular grid fleece is in the wash so I put on my leather jacket, it's a frigged 21 degrees Celsius in here, that's 69.8 degrees Fahrenheit for those not trapped in that socialist hellhole "the rest of the world".
As the beer warms up, the flavor changes to more of a mild, somewhat bitter, apple molasses taste. Honestly, this one just isn't my thing. It's good, but when you've had beers like it that do what it does better, it just doesn't have a great deal to offer. Maybe it's because I've just recently had some of the best Trappist beers in the world, and this beer can stand up and be counted among them taste wise, but it doesn't offer anything that special by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't have it, it's good beer. But after the glass was done, I was just tired of it, and I still have half the bottle.