This Is My Blood: Guldenberg

First, an ode to Philly's premiere beer bar, Monk's. If I were still in shove-as-many-Hamm's-in-my-mouth-as-I-can mode, then Monk's would be overpriced and pretentious. But in this current gear, the sip-something-interesting gear, there is no better place in the city than Monk's. When you sit at the bar, the bartender hands you a "Beer Bible," describing over 500 bottled beers that they have for sale. If I had the time and the money, I could spend the entire This Is My Blood 2020 at Monk's. I have neither time nor money in the macro, but in today's micro, I had some to spare, so I took a stool and asked for a beer.

Over the past couple days, we've been talking about flavors on the tongue, and today I wanted to try BITTER. Like sour, beers that are bitter are described as "refreshing," and unlike with sours, I actually agree. Ask me on December 31, 2019, and I'll tell you: the bitterer, the better.

Here's something interesting: animals originally evolved to taste bitter in order to be able to tell when something is poisonous. Mosher gives us the rest of the fable: 1) Animals stopped eating plants that tasted poisonous; 2) Plants evolved to taste bitter without being poisonous, and the decoys were just as effective in the quest to not get eaten by an animal.

In any case, we know that an IPA isn't going to kill us (right away, anyway; you can ask my liver about it in 30 years). And so I, along with trillions of other young adults around the universe, have developed a hankering for those bitter beers.

There are many different subgenres of bitter—over 25, in fact. I did not look them up, but I'll trust Mosher on this. Most of the bitterness in beer is more mellow, more enjoyable. The bitterness grows the longer you keep the beer on your tongue, until a sharp drop-off as a hop-determined time. And as we learned, you get some more bitter as you swallow, since those circumvallate papillae are in the back, waiting to be sensitive to that particular flavor.

Oh yeah, and it's helpful sometimes to know the IBU of a beer, which stands for "International Bitter Unit" (I had to look this up too—Tasting Beer doesn't really hold your hand with a lot of the basic vocabulary). The higher the IBU, the higher the bitterness...

...sometimes. Because it's also all about context. A lot of brewers have strong bitter hops, but then even it out with those sweet malts. If a beer is only bitter with a 20 IBU, it might taste more bitter than a 60 IBU beer with a bunch of dark roasted malts in it too.

I'm talking out of my ass here. I don't fucking know anything. It's only January 9th. That's why I figured it was a good day to take the seven-block lunch trek to Monk's, and get an expert opinion. My tall friend behind the bar, a would-be doppelganger were this still the midst of my manbun days, was very gracious in my request for a beer that is "bitter, not sweet or sour."

We landed on one of their draft beers, one called Guldenberg from the Belgian brewery De Ranke (Monk's specializes in the Belgian craft). According to written and verbal description, it was a dry beer, very bitter. I liked the sound of it. I liked the taste of it too. I love when you drink a beer and your mouth is bone-dry after you swallow. It doesn't quench a thirst, it only makes you thirsty for more—an alcoholic feels at home with a dry, hoppy beer.

I don't think I achieved my goal of having a purely bitter beer today, though, because I could definitely taste some sweet in this as well. Apparently De Ranke adds some candy sugar to the blend here to balance the bitter (40 IBU for this brand, I'll belatedly add). That's fair, and it actually got me thinking... maybe I wouldn't like a purely bitter drink after all? Maybe every IPA I've ever had that is "so bitter" was actually just expertly balanced with the competing sweet?

I dunno. I was reading today too about Dogfish Head Brewery's 2015 brew Hoo Lawd, which apparently had an IBU of 658, despite the fact that scientists dispute whether humans can even taste anything about 110 IBU. Sounds appealing, right? Not so fast—a lot of the reviews I read for the beer described it as "boderline undrinkable." It's possible that I have overstated my love of hoppy bitterness in the past. Maybe it's all about the alchemy, and finding that right balance.

In any case, I was thankful to be able to use Monk's as a guide today. As I evaporated every morsel of saliva from my mouth with my dry beer, I paged through the Beer Bible, and had to admire how seriously they took this whole beer-tasting thing. I love it! If I were rich, I'd come here every day for lunch (some of the beers are waaaaaay out of my price range). There's just so much to discover.

NOTES

BEER: Guldenberg

GENRE: Belgian Tripel

ABV: 8.5% (got a little tipsy on this one, I guess I'm losing my tolerance...)

BREWED BY: Brouwerij Brasserie De Ranke

LOCATION: Dottignies, Belgium

PURCHASED AT: Monk's, at 16th and Spruce

PRICE (AT THAT LOCATION): $8 plus tax/tip (Yes, expensive, but it was the same amount of alcohol as two Miller Lites, so you get what you pay for. Still, I have my limits, and I don't think I'll be coming to Monk's for a $60 750ml bottle of Trappist Ale any time soon)

PAIRED WITH: Nothing—I pack my lunch, and ate it two hours prior. But FUCK I could've gone for some Monk's mussels.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5