Twelve beers of Christmas: #3

It's a cold New Year's Eve and I'm several beers behind in this 'twelve beers' malarkey. Truth is, I've not been in the mood over the last two days - too tired, a palate jaded by overly spicy food. But now I'm ready for a real Christmas cake of a beer by the fire as I warm my chestnuts. My wife will settle for anything as long as it's a quad. So, hello St Bernardus Abt.


Actually this is beer whilst on the go - my in-laws have just arrived for drinks and nibbles. They're having a Wii so, whilst the falafel's in the oven, I can tell you the five things about St. Bernardus that I absolutely adore.

#1: It's not Westvleteren. It might be close, given the historical similarities, but by not being Westy I can order it online, friends and relations can buy me bottles and the price doesn't get driven through the roof by beer hunters on some ale-lust-for-glory.

#2: My wife loves it. How foolish I was to think that she'd be more attracted to fruit beers. Now, every Belgian bottle that I crack open is met with the question 'is it a quad?' - and she has an air of faint disappointment if the answer's no.

#3: They get the job done. Basic website, no overblown marketing on the bottle label, even though they have a history that most breweries would boil their heads for.

#4: I don't suffer from beer guilt when drinking it. Some bottles I want to share, some bottles I want to age, some lone bottles I want to cling on to like an only child. Some bottles I want to neck back, some bottles I want to drink with fey abandon, some bottles I want to hand out to strangers in the street. When I drink any of those I suffer from beer guilt. Not Saint B - I enjoy the very thought of the bottle top hitting the table, the pillowy head filling and not spilling from a chalice glass. The first whiff of coffee and yeast. And.....

#5: The sheer RaisinNutSpicySherryDoughyOrangeAppleyExcitingCaramelCoating fun of that first sip.

And there you have it. The last sweet drop drained. The stuffed vine leaves nearly all gone. The evening's about to grind through the gears, all champers and salmon and rhythm and blues. It'll be fun but not as much as a fireside, a flickering candle and another Saint B.

Thanks to beermerchants.com for another damn fine beer