Belgibeer Subscription Box Review – April 2017

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Every month, Belgibeer features a different craft brewery, sending freshly brewed beers together with glassware, beers mats, posters and anything available on site.

The box arrived very well packed, with each individual bottle and can bubble-wrapped and in cardboard so there is no chance for getting knocked around.

This month’s box features the brews of artisanal microbrewery Brasserie {C}. Set up in 2009 in Liege as the passion project of two agricultural students, they moved the brewery to a location on rue de la Brasserie (Brewery Street) and launched their first beer La Curtius in 2012.

TIP: This box ships to Europe. If you’re looking for a US beer club, try checking out all the beer subscriptions!

Here is everything in this month’s box: 2 bottles of Black {C}, 2 cans each of Torpay 30, Torpah 60 and Torpah 90, 2 Belgibeer stickers and a Belgibeer magazine.


Stickers!

Golden Hops is a brand new magazine produced by the BelgiBeer team. Along with tasting notes for the month’s beer selections, it includes an interview with the featured brewers at Brasserie {C} as well as La Parisienne Brewery, details for arranging brewery tours and a few other short beer-centric pieces.
 

Let’s begin with Black {C} (8% abv). This may be my favourite design for a beer bottle ever! The picture does not do it justice. The brew has an amazing, solid dark ebony colour with a thick coffee-coloured foam. The aroma matches the appearance with an inticing scent of malt and coffee. The drinking was not quite as pleasant. Although it had a nice creamy mouthfeel that was not overwhelmingly thick, the roasted malt flavour gave way to a very bitter taste. No wonder, at 55 IBU.

The next three beers are part of the Torpah range of single-hop, lager-type beers. The name is an anagram of ‘Art Hop’ because each beer is single-hop, or in other words, made from just one type of hops. Each hops comes from a different country, and so each beer showcases the way in which different types of hop, used in equal quantities, influences the flavour and bitterness of the beer. To make things easy, their names 30-60-90, refer to the IBU (bitterness index) of the beer.


Torpah 30 (6% abv) features the Wai-Ti hops from New Zealand.  It has a light golden colour and is ever-so-slightly hazy, with a quickly disippating fine foam. The aroma is lemony/citrusy. The mouthfeel is very light, sort of watery, and while with the first sip you taste the fruitiness, this quickly gives way to a lasting bitterness.


Torpah 60 (6% abv) is brewed with Aramis hops from Alsace, France. It has a golden colour that is just a little hazy. The tasting notes say that it has an aroma of fresh flowers and cut grass. I have to agree that the beer has a slightly ‘farmy’ scent! This beer has a pleasant floral taste, which is unfortunately overtaken by a heavy bitterness.

Torpah 90 (6% abv) uses Chinook hops from Idaho, USA.  It is the clearest of the Torpah varients and pale gold in colour. It has an impressive amount of frothy white foam that is slow to dissipate. The aroma is of vibrant grapefruit, and the beer tastes super bitter to match. I found that it had an earthy, almost dirt-like, taste. The mouth-feel is surprisingly silky, but I honestly couldn’t let it linger in my mouth for too long due to the intense bitterness.

Sadly, none of the beers in this month’s box were for me. I don’t mind a bitter beer (at least I didn’t think I did…), but all of the Brasserie {C} beers were just beyond what I can appreciate or enjoy in terms of IBU. The story for all four beers was the same: a very inviting aroma, the first second of the first sip revealing unique and intriguing flavours, then  instantly overwhelmed by a pungent and pervasive bitter taste. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would absolutely love this month’s selection, but unfortunately I am not one of them.

Visit BelgiBeer to subscribe or find out more!

BelgiBeer

Belgibeer.com aims at promoting real Belgian tradition. On our online platform one beer producer and its brewery are described every month. People can then be given the chance to purchase and enjoy the products from the brewery.

With freshly brewed beers collected straight from the breweries, we insist on bringing to the market a real Belgian movement for better drinking habits.

Only €27.90 per month (around $31)!

$31
00 per month

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