This 750ml bottle contains one of the most pricy beers I have in my collection up to now.
Although its expensive price prohibited me to try this 11,5% Belgian Strong Ale for quite a while, it also kindled my curiosity about the taste of such a pricy beer.
The price is justified mainly for the exclusivity; not many of those are produced every year, and importing it from Belgium was, in 2006, even more uncommon in Brazil. The only bar that would serve it, would charge nothing less than 300 reais (which are equivalent 120 euros or 150 US dollars in today's currency, but would amount to higher sums in 2006). Nowadays one can find it in brazilian online stores for almost half the price.
The production of this beer includes three fermentation processes, being the third one performed in the bottle, in the region of Champagne, France, where the beer receive a special treatment similar to the one used to produce the world famous sparkling wine. That even gives this beer the bubbles which are characteristic of the Champagne.
As I really couldn't invest the amount charged by the bar in São Paulo, and direct importers were not to be found easily, I could only count on some extraordinary event to lay my hands on one of these bottles. So it came that, in 2006, Conrado Rössger, a good friend from university, came to Europe for an internship. I seized that opportunity and, even a few months in advance, bothered him to the point in which he had no other option but bringing me a bottle in his suitcase.
Of course Conrad agreed since the beginning in bringing me it, but I made sure he wouldn't forget it by flooding his mailbox and bringing the subject up every other time I would meet him... Yes, I am shameless!
In the end, he managed to find the 2006 edition and buy the last bottle of a beer shop near the Madam Tussauds in Amsterdam for 25 euros, which were promptly and gladly reimbursed.
One last curiosity, and I already apologize for the louzy joke, Deus, in portuguese, means 'God'... Now I am sure that there is at least one god! It is bottled in Belgium, re-fermented in France and you can find it in a store near Amsterdam's Madam Tussauds!! And it tastes good...
link to the producer: http://www.bestbelgianspecialbeers.be/main_eng.html
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