New Belgium Night at Toronado

Following last week’s Drake’s tasting, it seems like Toronado is on a roll.  They’ve been running special tastings almost weekly.  

This week, it’s New Belgium, and they are bringing their special release Belgian-style beers.  This is especially exciting given that these beers are especially hard to find anywhere in California.

The line-up

Descriptions from New Belgium materials

• Abbey Dubbel: “Complex, sweet with some chocolate and banana aromas and flavors. A full bodied, warming traditional Belgian Style Dubbel.”
• Tripel: “Phenolic clove and spice aromas are followed by a creamy mouthfeel and some noble hop character. Alcohol is evident in the palate, finishes bittersweet and spicy.”
• Eric’s Ale: “This Peche, or Peach beer, started as an ale aged in 130 hL wooden vessels called Foedres for 3 years. It was then transferred and real peaches were added. A second Strong Golden Ale was brewed and blended back into the sour ale. Subtle peach, tropical fruit and tart aromas in the nose, plus some vanilla and oak. The flavor is a balance of sweet and sour. A drinkable and refreshing sour beer hybrid.”
• Love #34: “A single batch from a 60 gallon wood barrel. Not usually kegged as it is used as the starter for all of New Belgium’s wood beers. Started as a brown ale brewed with cherries (no longer produced), barrel aged for 3 years, giving this specific barrel a unique blend of bacteria and yeast, which make the final product a manifestation of New Belgium’s unique specialty styles.”
• Foedre #3: “The base beer for the Le Terroir, hand selected by Dave Keene at the brewery and kegged for him alone. We can’t describe it yet because it has never been tasted outside of the NBB facility.”

This is just one more example of those conundrums I find myself running into with increasing frequency: Attend to my already scheduled business and personal commitments…or go drink beer?  I’m supposed to be showing my apartment to prospective sub-letters from 7:30pm to 9:00pm.  Since the beer event starts at 6:00pm, this should work out just fine, so long as I continue my current trend of leaving my day job pre-6:00pm.  Let’s just hope my casework decides to cooperate with these plans.