Products
White
It improves every year, but it is nowhere near my favourite, Hoegaarden (or Celis White), but why strive for this if you can buy this in almost every supermarket over here.
The name Levend Wit (Living White?) is inspired by a paint
manufacturer who called a line of off white colors Levend Wit.
The background is an impression of an off white color that has a better
resemblance with the color of a white beer.
In an investigation of white beers by the dutch association of beerconsumers
PINT it was
found that only four of the fifteen beers investigated, still contained living
yeast cells.
So the name also refers to the fact that this beer does contain living yeast cells.
Over the years, this beer has improved a great deal (according to my taste). So much, it is actually another beer, and with batch 49 (brewed on April 9, 2004), I even managed to get a bit of sourness into it, which makes it a very refreshing beer.
And so it has been renamed
into Seizoen (Season), referring to the summer, in which
this kind of refreshing beer is appreciated very much.
Triple
Especially brewed for my birthday. The first time was for my thirtieth birthday. As every triple, it is strong, well hopped, and spiced with a special mixture of herbs.
The background is van Gogh's - Starry Night. In my opinion he was drunk
when he painted this. Probably from the drinking of wine, but then he
was known to be crazy.
The name Triple stems from the old days. Then, the brewers distinguished
their barrels of stronger (more alcohol) beer from the others by a double
marking (a cross, diamond, etc). The even stronger beer got three markings.
And what a coincidence, this triple was brewed for my thirtieth birthday.
Winter
It is called Kerstboom, which is the Dutch word for Christmas-tree. Kerst is short for Kerstmis, which means Christmas, and boom is also a Dutch slang word for a beer.
Then, why is it called a winterbeer and not a christmasbeer?
Well, a christmas-tree has nothing to do with Christmas. It was used
by the Teutons in their festivities around the winter solstice.
Dark
Herfst is Dutch for autumn. It is really a very bitter beer, more
or less developed as a protest against the fading of taste of most
commercial beers established by lowering the bitterness.
Quadruple
Since the Triple was first brewed for my thirtieth birthday back in 1994, it was now time to brew a Quadruple.
The picture is supposed to represent the state of mind after drinking this
beer.
The resemblance with a pseude-colored picture of the brain altered by
BSE (Mad Cow Disease) is coincidental.
Fruit
This is a cherry beer, hence the rood (red) in the name. The wit (white) is related to the base of the beer, a light version of a white beer.
The light base is compensated by the sugar content of the cherries.
But how much of this sugar has been extracted from the cherries exactly
is not known.
So the percentage of alcohol is probably slightly less than indicated
on the label.