The beers of Iwakuni: Duvel by Duvel Moortgat

I started writing this review in Japan. Unfortunately while the bottle had survived the trip across the world, the contents did not. I purchased a replacement bottle from Crafted In Simpsonville SC.
I got this in a poarchbomb from Hilgar. It is Duvel by the Duvel Moortgat brewery out of Breendonk Belgium. We will start out with the history of the brewer of this famous Belgian strong golden pale ale. In 1871 Jan-Leonard Moortgat and his wife started a farm brewery in the Flemish countryside which was eventually taken over by their sons Albert and Victor. During the Great War there was a surge in popularity of British beers in Belgium and the Moortgat brothers sought to create their own. In 1918 Albert went to England to learn about Ale and collect yeast samples, one of these samples (attained from a brewery in Scotland) became the strain they use to this day. They finally had a fantastic English styled beer just in time for the Armistice, so they named it Victory Ale! In 1923 they renamed the beer Duvel after a customer exclaimed "this beer is the real Devil" (Duvel is Flemish for Devil). In the 1960's they came out with a lighter version called "Green Duvel" and around the same time they created the "Duvel glass", which is a Belgen tulip glass with a longer than usual neck, akin to the Scottish thistle glass. At this same time Bert, Marcel, Leon, and Emile Moortgat took over the business. The Moortgat family still owns and operates the brewery, but have certainly expanded the business. One interesting note is that Duvel Moortgat bought out Boulevard brewing in July 2015, a brewery I have reviewed in the past.

I received this beer in a 330ml stubby bottle with crimpcap and an interesting bulged neck that tiers into the shoulder. The front label art is a very European white background and classical lettering featuring the brewery seal over the name "DUVEL" "Belgian Golden Ale" "Bottle Conditioned". The reverse is a little more fun. It features two wayfarer sunglasses wearing cherubs shooting arrows at a heart in the famous Duvel glass, above it reads "A Heavenly pour for a Devil of a beer". The epitaph along the sides read "Did divine inspiration lead Jan-Leonard Moortgat to invent his brewery in 1871? Or was it the little devil on his shoulder? It's impossible to know. But we do know what a beer with this heritage deserves a righteous pour. Remember that frothiness is next to Godliness. Celebrating inspiration since 1871!". It is 8.5% alc by volume. I will be using my tall tulip glass, which is the closest thing I have to the Duvel glass. Let's see that head!

Nose from the bottle is like a sour wheat beer, I hope this didn't skunk. It did.

 I've retrieved the replacement bottle from my local bottle shop (Crafted in Simpsonville), now we continue. The glass I was going to use in Japan is still packed up, so I will use one of my other tulip glasses.

Nose from the bottle is a bready wheat with a little sourness and funk. Pours golden straw with an ivory white head, moderate agitation, just hazy enough to not see out the other side of the glass clearly. Nose from the glass is more of a white wine with wheat qualities, a little sweet as well. On first sip, Wow that's hard to describe. It has a white desert wine taste with a wheat quality, it manages to be both sweet and bitter at the same time. It's like a sweet light malt with a good deal of bittering hops that are not overpowering, probably Saaz (Post Script: it is Saaz, and also Golding). Starts sweet malt with honey and white grape, then the bitter hops come in and rides out to the end. Finishes bitter, hopy, and dry with a sweet honey aftertaste. It's a light body due to the high carbonation, a little warming, not particularly acidic. Balance on this beer really swings back and forth between the bitter hops and the sweet malt, it's got an equal balance by aggregate.

Listening to Howlin Wolf. Today's a good day, as I saw a friend I thought had died walking along on the street! He lives and works in town and I am overjoyed to learn this!
In other news, I finally broke down and bought a new drive shaft for the 180SX. Wound up going with a stock one as all of the forums said you're wasting your money on a performance shaft unless you're putting out 600hp. The engine is pretty stock and for the most part I'm leaving it that way, so no need to spend $400 when $100 will do everything you need it to. It gets here Thursday, so tomorrow I'm going to take the plate of my '79 dodge and transfer it over to the 180. Hopefully I can have the American title made up and insurance by Monday.

It's not pretty, but it'll probably work

Switched over a record I bought in Japan. It claims to be the original motion picture soundtrack for Fritz Lang's 1926 lost masterpiece of German expressionist film making: Metropolis. This is a strange proposition but not unheard of, as films of the time were partially stage shows and often came with sheet music to be played. It is immediately apparent that this is not Gottfried Huppertz's Richard Wagner inspired score commissioned for the original film. The First song features Freddy Mercury (of Queen fame) and is one of the most aggressively 80's things I've ever heard. It just becomes more 80's Pop from there. No, this is from Giorgio Moroder's 1984 80 minute restoration, the one that was nominated for two Golden Raspberry's...both for it's musical score. Good lord Japan, the things you people hold on to. This is like staring the ugly reality of that decade right in the face. No need for rose colored glasses here folks.

Final thoughts. Fantastic! this beer not only challenged my descriptive abilities but was also delicious in a way that I don't see in many beers! I give this beer my blurry seal of approval!

http://www.duvel.com/en/history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvel_Moortgat_Brewery

The beers of Fountain Inn: Draai Laag Brewing Company's Relic

I purchased this beer at Crafted in Simpsonville SC (my favorite bottle shop). Tonight's beer is Relic, by Draai Laag Brewing Company out of Millvale Pennsylvania. I heard about this one from my friend (and associate of the blog) Hilgar, who informed me of it's rather interesting quality. This beer was made from a yeast strain dug out of the protective wax of a nearly 400 year old cabinet from a French monastery, making it one of the oldest yeast strains in current use. This kind of thing is Draai Laag's prerogative, interesting and atypical French and Belgian styled beers made with a solid understanding of the science of fermentation. Started in 2009 by science geek and fermentation aficionado Dennis after seeing a Jerry rigged brewing system in the basement of an English pub, the brewery thrives on being unconventional and experimental. They currently run a taproom in Pittsburgh called Strange Roots.

I purchased this beer in a 1pt 9oz (500ml) long body slender shoulder crimpcap bottle. I can see allot of sediment at the bottom, but some of the best beers do, just be ready for floaters. The label art features a simple, almost midevel design featuring the breweries hop sword symbol. It states on the bottle "Draai Laag brewing co Relic Ale" and their tagline "Wild by design". The epitaph on the bottle states "Long story short - we came into possession of a French Monastery cabinet dated from the 17th century and, naturally, set to work attempting to extract a yeast strain from the initial layers of wax used to preserve it. Hops were added sparingly, allowing the uniquely earthy, musty and citrusy flavors of the ancient strain to shine". 6.3% abv. I'll be using a tulip glass for this one, incidentally also from Crafted (although I've had it for years). Lets pop the top and see that head.

It makes a fantastic hiss, wisps pour out the top as well. Nose from the bottom is both bready and sour, kind of like a Flanders sour scent. Maybe a little lactic, defiantly musty. Pours an opaque yellow-orange color (about a 7 on the SRM) with a quickly dissipating head, although agitation is fantastic. It is very much a "living" beer. Nose from the glass is still an acidic sour but more citrusy and less musty. On first sip, certainly sour and citrusy. I would say those are the two overriding characteristics, it's similar to either a blood orange or a pomelo. It has a bready characteristic that shows up towards the end, disappears, and then reappears in the aftertaste. Finishes dry and tart with a grapefruit rind taste and a lingering citric acid and bread. A bit of a mustiness comes through as you drink it, but it's not as pronounced as I anticipated. Medium body and fairly acidic, although not quite as much as you would expect from the flavor. A little astringent, kind of enzymatic as well.

Listening to an Israeli Jazz-Rock band called Marbin. Got the vinyl in the mail a week or two ago, but I only recently got my turntable set back up so this is my first time hearing it. Great background music for reviewing beer. My brother wanted to try this beer, we'll see what he thinks... He likes it, he thinks it tastes like the "Red 5 standing by" Flanders red had a love child with a Lambic. I disagree with him on the Lambic portion, but I see where he would get that.
So let's talk about one of the most influential event's you may have never heard of, Starfish Prime. So back in '62, four years after James Van Allen confirmed that the Earth had a series of giant radioactive belts that protected us from waves the of particles flying around outer space, the United States wanted to understand what would happen if you set a nuke off in them because of course we did. This was coming on the tail of the Soviet Union ending their moratorium on testing nuclear weapons in space and we thought it was a fantastic opportunity to redo the (poorly executed) high altitude nuclear tests that we had done in '58 (immediately after finding out about the aforementioned radioactive belts), but without the political ramifications. So we started Operation Fishbowl, and with five W49 thermonuclear warheads atop PGM-17 Thor missiles we set out to do some science. Our first launch, Bluegill, we thought was going off it's flight path so we had it self destruct. Latter we determined that it was doing just fine and we had destroyed a 6.25 million ($51,296,978.48 in today's money) missile for absolutely nothing. The second launch, Starfish, flew for 59 seconds before the missile stopped and just started to break apart (there is a reason we had stopped making Thor missiles two years prior) so we had it self destruct as well. The third one however, Starfish Prime, successfully detonated at 250 miles up from it's launch pad on Johnston Island. We launched 27 rockets with instruments to gather data from the test, and boy did they get some data. The EMP that Starfish Prime created was so large we were not capable of measuring it at the time and caused significant damage to Hawaii's electrical infrastructure 900 miles away. You could actually see the flash from Honolulu. The Beta particles released by the detonation created new, temporary radiation belts within the existing ones which crippled 1/3rd of all low Earth orbit satellites at the time. After that, we knew we had a better way to use the bomb and it's characterized how it's been employed ever since.

Although we still haven't done a great deal to shield ourselves from EMP attack.

Final thoughts. Great beer, really tasty, fantastic to sip. I'd like to try some of this brewers other stuff, they've got me interested. I give this beer my blurry seal of approval.

http://www.strangerootsbeer.com/our-story/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fishbowl