Sunday, March 1, 2009

A productive weekend deserves a delicious beer


Had a good weekend!  Did some grocery shopping, ran some errands, cleaned the house, paid some bills, and perhaps MOST importantly -- I am now about 99% finished with my library!  It has been a dream of mine for many years to have a library in my home -- a place to keep all my books and magazines and printed stuff!!  I have long had boxes of books in storage - I love my books, I know it's 2009 and there's kindle and all kinds of things where you don't need actual books -- BUT I LOVE THEM!!  For about a year, we have had the extra bedroom designated as what-would-be-the-library -- and at last, I was able to spend most of Saturday night playing in my books, arranging them, deciding what shelf they should go on -- loads of fun for me.  Yet further proof that I am a huge, middle-aged, geek.  Oh well.  
Tonight I am enjoying a Kasteel Rouge.  I love this beer, I know some people have mixed feelings about it.  Kasteel Rouge is brewed by the Brewery Van Hounsebrouck.  It is dark red (hence the name), it smells like a dark, dangerous and delicious cherry NyQuil, and it tastes like a chocolate covered cherry brandy.  As well it should!   What the brewers of this tasty beer do is, they have a delicious, dark beer called Kasteel Donker (hee hee).  Have you ever had a chocolate covered Montcheri cherry?  Sure you have.  Maybe you had one as a child and remembered it tasted weird (because it tastes like brandy) and haven't had one lately.  Before the Montcheri cherries are covered in chocolate, they are soaked in a brandy-alcohol solution.  The brewery buys this liquid after the cherries are removed and add this to their Kasteel Donker.  The result is a dark, fruity, 9-ish percent ABV, fairly heavy in body, perfect nightcap kind of beer.  Don't get me wrong.  You can't drink five of these and then go party.  I probably wouldn't even drink two at a sitting.  But, like a good brandy or port, after a particularly satisfying meal or after a particularly productive weekend, it certainly is a good finish.  You can't tell, but I took the picture of the Kasteel Rouge in my library.  

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