Rochefort is a beer: Roquefort is a cheese.

I am in the land of beer.  
Don't get me wrong, Seattle can hold its own in the realm of access to great beer and in the production of ridiculously good micro-brews... but Belgium really is the land of beer.  I have not tried a single beer that has not been good -- plus everything is cheap as dirt.  Just for fun I brought up the beer menu from Brouwers in Fremont (LOVE that place) to see if I had tried any of the Belgian beers they have available -- the one I am drinking at this moment (for instance) is 12 dollars for a bottle at Brouwers: here in Belgium the six pack at the grocery store was 5.49 euro.  Basically I am drinking lots of beer in order to save money.  

I love it when a place loves and cultivates something well.  Discovering and respecting (and drinking) a product that has a thousand layers of flavor and a thousand (or many more) years of history is so much FUN - it is the same experience I had in France with the wine and with the cheese.  Hundreds of brilliant, patient people did all the research and work and I just get to drink it and say "my god, YES, well DONE history."  Pretty much the best deal ever.  
The people of France are très, très passionnés about their wine.  The same is true in Belgium with beer and, although the countries exist side by side, these passions remain distinctly separate.  It is as if in Washington state we were OBSESSED with coffee (push your imagination for a moment), but then as SOON as you crossed into Oregon no one ever drank anything but drip, and were obsessed with orange juice.  Okay, bad analogy, but you get what I mean.  

One of my favorites that I have tried so far is a trappist beer called Rochefort 8 (FYI: it is 9.2 percent... are you kidding me?).   I love this beer.  I recently tried it at a bar in Bruges for the first time and when I made my order I pronounced the beer, “roquefort” (like the cheese).  The waiter's face immediately glossed over with the snide look of the globally understood sentiment, “I've got another idiot tourist here."  He then mocked me thoroughly and with great animation when he got back to the kitchen (all of which I could hear and understand – I speak the flailing French of an adult learner, yes, but am approaching fluency thanks to hard work and sleeping with a frenchman, though I am sure he assumed otherwise based on my poor pronunciation).  I knew I had to act fast in order to have something different than a moment of eye-rolling from him and a "thankee kindly mr french speaking beer man, ARF ARF" from me when he returned.  
I made sure my cleavage was visible (this takes time and effort - it is only visible with strategic angling and lighting... I often wish at moments like this I could just whip around and speak with my ass - it would be SO much easier) and when he returned with my beer I looked at him with every ounce of Seattle-snob I could muster and said, “Est-ce que le fromage que j’ai commandé?”

I got the second for free.  

Comments

[Kevin Collison]

Rochefort 12 (Yes, 12!) is probably one of the best beverages to have ever passed my lips. But at $6-7 a bottle (not even 12 oz at that) I have only had 2.

[Charis Brice]

I love that you have had it and love it! I have tried the 10 but not the 12. I liked the 8 more than the 10 but am not even sure what the difference is... plus it is sortof like trying to choose a favorite child... it just doesn't feel appropriate. :)
I am currently enrolled in the PRE-requisites for Belgian Beer 101... I have virtually no idea what I am talking about, but having a blast learning.

[Mindy Danylak]

oh my god charis this is so funny - and your seattle accent is so great i understood the french! :)