Chimay

Chimay is an excellent brew... It's a "Trappist" brew. As I recall there were about 3 or 4 different varities. It was interesting, because the bottle advised drinking Chimay in a wide-mouth glass, as opposed to the "normal" stein/pint/pilsner glass.

If you enjoy a good Belgian White, or a Wheat beer, then Chimay is certainly a beer for you!

-Eric Shock

The Chimay range available to most of us consists of three varieties, yes, commonly referred to by their label and bottle-cap colors: "Red," "Blue," and "White." The Red is their baseline product, the Blue is a stronger beer than the Red, and the White is considered to be in the style of a blonde Triple ale (and is so designated on signs advertising the draught version).

Nothing unusual about that. Just about every Belgian brewery suggests that their beers should be served in a glass considered "appropriate" to the style. The wide Chimay chalice has comparable counterparts from Westmalle, Rochefort, Orval, Westvleteren, and Achel, the other five Belgian Trappist breweries.

I'm not sure why. Chimay White isn't a Belgian White (Witbier or Biere Blanche, common names for Belgian wheat beers). It's higher in alcohol than a typical Belgian wheat beer, and has a different flavor profile. Compare it, instead, to the likes of Westmalle Triple, or any of the commercial "abbey" triples, even American-made ones from the likes of Allagash.

By the way, Eric, just an aside: do you know how to set LookOut Excess to answer to posts by setting your cursor to the *bottom* of the post? Usenet posting replies are typically done by posting replies in-line, or at the bottom, of the post (see above), judiciously editing the quoted parts to which you are replying. Microsoft's crap LookOut Excess product wreaks havoc with such conventions. There are better news- reading clients out there (*cough*Thunderbird*cough*).

Why do you hate America? The usual range is specified in the order of red, white and blue. Commie.

Indeed. Something the OP may not be aware of is that in Belgium, every brewery has its own unique glassware, and beers are always served in the appropriate vessel. That's because not only do certain styles seem to be better suited to certain sorts of glassware, but also because the breweries themselves supply the glassware directly to the pubs and cafes, something which is verboten in the States.

As well as the other breweries which borrow names from monestaries.

Eh, it all depends on which Chimay one's speaking about. The red cap or the blue cap, yeah, there's really nothing in common with a Belgian white other than the fact that they all contain some barley, hops, water and yeast. But the white cap (Cinq Cents, by label), I could see some similarities there in a way. To me they're miles apart. But if one's experiencing the wide range of Belgian beers for the first time, I could conceivably see some similarities, if for no other reason than the complex range of flavors that don't often exist outside of Belgian beers.

Or even just moving the cursor elsewhere within Outlook of any flavor. But, hey, at least you didn't play slap the newbie as you're typically wont to do.

-Steve

I'm Beercommie? Dang. I've got friends who own and work in breweries. Does that count?

There's also one other reason, more of a hidden agenda: every unique glass taking up space in a Belgian cafe means that there's no space for the competition's glassware (or their beer).

Yeah, I think I covered that when I mentioned "abbey" ales elsewhere.

Hey, I'm getting old. Either that, or maybe I see that Eric's first posts suggest he's actually interested in beer, in spite of being limited to certain selections because of NC's silly beer-alcohol-limit regulations.

Oh, bullshit. Don was pretty snobbish about it...as he is, some days. I've been using Express for almost 10 years. It's free, it does what I need, and none of the other clients you guys have ever touted (and I've downloaded them all, slavishly, until about three years ago when I decided it was pointless) do as good a job as simply -- for my needs. Granted, my USENET needs are pretty simple, but these days, whose aren't?

Killfiles are still useful. Does that virus magnet Outlook Express do killfiles? Or.... run under Linux? ;-)

Speaking of Chimay, a couple years back there was some talk about the Red not being as complex/tasty as it used to be. So I bought some and found I agreed. However, I had more in the past few months and found it as tasty as it always was (AFAICT). My theory is that a bit of age helps. Reasonable?

Are tou still about this newsgroup, Lew? I have Cincinnati beer news for you!