A Trip with the Damned - Unibroue La Maudite (Chambly, Quebec)

I feel if one is to start anywhere when talking about beer in particular, one might as well begin at the top. While I might not be able to say that any one of these beers is hands-down my favorite, they've come pretty close on a number of occasions. The first review therefore, is of Unibroue, a Quebec-based brewery just shy of its twentieth year in operation.

I'm not entirely sure how I stumbled upon this company. I'm going to have to give credit to the large number of Quebec-based students that happened to be studying with me in Russia less than a year ago. They couldn't help but brag about their local beer and how they missed it. Right. Canadian beer. My first inclination was to think back to the "Second City TV" skit from the mid-seventies featuring Rick Morranis and Dave Thomas as brothers Bob and Doug Mckenzie, the stereotypical hockey-watching, back-bacon loving, and Molson-downing Canadians. In short, "Canada" did not equal "beer." I had no idea how wrong I was.

Although there were any number of things that the Quebecois would claim having gotten right (including the French language, women in general, and the French-Indian War of the 1750s), I discovered that they had a definite point when it came to beer. On my twenty-first birthday I made my way to a New Jersey beer distributor and purchased a four-pack of what would be my first Unibroue, La Maudite.

This beer blew my mind from the get-go: the art on the packaging and bottle itself is unique featuring a devil slightly below a small ship gone awry (paying homage of course to its name which translates as "The Damned). Each Unibroue is considered an "Ale on Lees" meaning that it is bottled with a layer of its own yeast. Originally, from what I have been told, the purpose of this was to allow the beer to ferment longer without lengthening the pre-bottling process. Either way it leaves a lingering layer of yeasty goodness on the bottom, only accentuated once the bottle itself is cracked.

I fiddled for nearly five minutes with a bottle opener before realizing that this beer - $10 for a four pack - has a twist-off cap. Regardless, I poured it into a tulip glass and let it sit. As it was advertised in the style of a "Strong Belgian" I was aware that it would only improve with a little bit of a warm-up. The color was a very dark amber, made cloudy by the yeast layer I previously mentioned. I know some people who are a bit taken aback by a cloudy beer. Trust me, this is nothing to worry about. Scent-wise, think fruity at first followed up by some dark caramels. But think quickly, the smell doesn't linger for too long. Enough with the visual stuff. Let's get to the point here: how did it taste?

Any beer over about 5% ABV terrifies people. I don't know what it is. I figure, you're drinking beer, so go figure, you might get a little buzz going. It might however, be that in the case of alcohol in general, a higher-than-you're-used-to ABV implies a taste sacrifice. This is not the case with this beer. While at first your mouth needs to acclimate to the carbonation, you aren't tasting the 8% ABV of La Maudite. Just sweet enough, just dry enough, and not overwhelming in the least, little hints of the caramel you may have smelled if you have a nice pretentious nose for these sort of things. The only thing to be careful of is just this: the taste. The beer goes down easily once you're used to its flavor; the ABV, while not something to be tasted, is still there.

Overall, I believe I gave this beer about ****1/2 out of *****, which, as you'll find out if you keep reading, is incredibly good. I highly recommend just about any beer by this company, but this is definitely one of my favorites.

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