ABBAYE DES ROCS GRAND CRU

Right, that’s easy for you to say! Isn’t “grand cru” champagne talk? I just know that that designation has been popping up a number of Belgian and Belgian-style beers I’ve been encountering, and it’s mysterious and highfalutin enough to make me want to figure out what it means. Oh – and this particular example, the GRAND CRU from ABBAYE DES ROCS in Belgium, is really, really good. It broke the Hedonist Beer Jive record for largest head on a single pour – absolutely gushing, and frothing & foaming over the side of the glass. The taste is very carmel-ish and at times sweet, but certainly not sickeningly so. It’s so delicious and subtle, even, that you’ll have a hard time believing that the alcohol level is in the double digits – 10% ABV. This is so good and so full of flavor that I can just see the train wreck of a hangover that would come from a few goblets of these. I know this brewery (or brouwerij) makes a few others on the shelves in the USA, but nothing wrong in starting with this one. We give it an 8/10.