Sharing one beer a day is getting a bit tough especially when the bottle is only 250 ml (one cup) in size! We wanted to taste Früli, a strawberry Belgian Fruit beer but when we saw the small bottle we knew we needed one more Belgian beer to make our tasting complete. So… we grabbed a ‘larger’ 750ml bottle of La Chouffe an Ardenne strong beer. The Belgians have a unique style of beer unlike the ales and lagers of other beer-making countries like England and Germany: ‘lambic’ beers like the Früli ferment differently than other beers (spontaneous as opposed to top or bottom fermentation) which is kind of a cool fact if you are a ‘beer geek’. My relatives who live in Belgium call Früli “a ladies beer” so I figured I had better have Sam pose with that beer instead of me (those relatives are always ready to poke fun don’t you know). Sam took a photo of me with my two favorite things, chocolate and beer (my Belgian roots are showing; that should make my relatives proud!)

©Darwin Wiggett

©Samantha Chrysanthou

Tasting Notes

Früli - This peachy-brown lambic beer has a ripened strawberry smell and is very fizzy on the tongue. The taste is not very beer-like at all, really. We thought it tasted like a fruit punch with a sweet, frizzy champagne feel in the mouth. Really, this is a great refreshing little drink even for guys. If you like fruit punch, you’ll like this beer. This beer is great to surprise guests with as a dessert just on its own or with the recommended black forest cake!

La Chouffe - this strong blond Belgian beer is golden and murky in the glass with a frothy head. But what got me was the nose. This beer smells like a road-killed skunk! I am not kidding, the pungent fragrance of squished skunk came full force from this beer. It was a bit off-putting, but fortunately the taste redeemed this beer: the fizzy, slightly sour character won us over after a couple of sips. Warning though: this beer packs a wollop both in terms of its size and alcohol content!

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