Style: Belgian Farmhouse Ale
Owner: Independent / Family Owned
Courtesy of: Insop Song
BeerAdvocate Rating: 94 (Outstanding)
RateBeer Rating: 99,99
ABV: 6.5%
The current incarnation of the Dupont brewery was founded in 1920 and is located in Tourpes, in West-Hainaut, Belgium. As best I can tell with my rudimentary French skills and a healthy helping of Google Translate, a guy named Louis Dupont was considering moving to Canada to buy a farm. Louis' father, not wanting his son to grow up to be a filthy Canadian, convinced him to stay in Belgium by buying him the Alfred Dupont farm, which had a long brewing tradition stretching back into the mid-18th century and famous for its seasonal and honey brews.As good as he was at brewing ale, he wasn't that good with the ladies because he died childless in 1945, leaving the brewery to his nephew, a brewing engineer named Sylva Rosier. The brewery was passed on to Sylva's children and grandchildren, and today Louis' father is responsible for keeping 4 generations of his family from becoming Canadian.
Serving:
Reverentially poured from a champagne-style bottle into my Steady-Temp double-wall beer glass. The glass breathed a soft sigh.
Appearance:
This ale pours a beautiful, cloudy light-amber color with a massive eggshell-white head that just keeps hanging around. There is copious lacing left on the glass. Actually it's more than lacing; it's almost a coating.
Smell:
It presents a nice, rich aroma of malt and an unusual yeast that imparts the impression of spicy herbs and lemon with a peppery undertone.
Taste:
Wow. Very different from the smell. Sweet pale malt with banana esters on the front, following through with a grassy, earthy tail. It leaves you with a wonderful, slightly-bitter hop taste after the sweetness of the malts fade gently away.
Mouthfeel:
A very rich and robust beverage, but not so heavy as to be "chewy." For an ale it has a significant level of carbonation, but not so much as to be distracting.
Overall:
While Ales are not my normal style of beverage, I quite enjoyed this one. I, for one, am very happy Louis stayed in Belgium to make this excellent representative of a Farmhouse Ale. This would be an excellent choice on a cold winter's night with a fire in the hearth and a book in the hand.
