[John B]

Hello to you all, and my apologies for not posting often lately. The work load has been heavy, especially in the last few months. I've managed to get some beery shots when I do get out to have a few, and will post them soon.

A question here for Filip, or anyone else who might know the answer to this...

There is a chain of small-ish markets here spread across the country called Trader Joe's.Their markets are probably the place I do most of my food shopping. They have an interesting selection, some of which are hard to find elsewhere, and usually at pretty good prices and often in portions that work well for a one or two person household. The foods and beverages that they carry are made by various outside companies.

One of the beers that they always stock around this time of year is the Trader Joe's Vintage Ale. It comes in a 750 ml bottle and in the past has been made by Unibroue in Canada. So I saw this beer available this week, and at the same price as usual, only $7.99. For the quality it's a steal, so I always pick up at least a couple of bottles.

Picked up a couple of them, and opened one up and it seemed even a little better than previous year's versions. Smoother, and not as "chalky" tasting. So after taking a look at the back of the bottle I noticed something surprising. It's not made by Unibroue any more. It's now made by Brouwerij Van Steenberge.

So my question for Detective Filip is, what beer is this? I went to Van Steenberge's site and couldn't find a 9% ABV beer that matched up with this one. It's a darker beer, certainly not a blonde. If I had to describe it, it has tasting notes and appearance similar to the Gulden Draak Classic, but with a much lower ABV.

Any ideas of what this beer could be?





Sherlock Beery Holmes Cheers! - John

 

[Trappist]

Hi John,
It would not surprise me if that is the Augustijn donker (8 vol%).
Ok, it is 1 vol% stronger as mentioned on the Augustijn dark label.
But, the alcohol percentage tolerance on the label here in Belgium is:
With beer with a maximum of 5.5 % vol. alcohol: The legal tolerance is 0.5%.
Beer with more than 5.5 % vol. alcohol: The legal tolerance is 1%.
Perfectly legal
Cheers,
Filip