Wild Oats Series No. 2 - Vrienden
Beau's All Natural Brewing Company

 

We don't get much Beaus beer in Toronto unfortunately. The Lugtread Lager is around, but thats it. I was lucky enough though to get my hands on a bottle of the Beaus and Koningshoeven collaboration beer, Vrienden. Thank you so much to Beaus for making that happen!

Vrienden was created to commemorate the Tulip Festival and the 65th anniversary of the Netherlands liberation by Canadian troops; commissioned by the Dutch embassy. It falls in Beaus' Wild Oat Series, and is a wheat beer brewed with juniper berries and maple syrup - ingredients traditional of the two collaborative countries.

It was handed to me in Beaus' classic 750ml ceramic bottle, and is 5.0% abv. I was very excited to try this beer, and took the opportunity to do so on the beach during one of the most beautiful May 24 weekends I have ever seen.

I literally poured this beer into two tulip glasses on the beach with a good friend of mine. The pour was elegant and smooth with lots of vigorous life lifting a pure white densely airy 2 inch head. The pale golden straw colored beer instantly chilled the glass and sat contently in the sun glowing an opaque orange with fog and white clouds resting atop it. It did shimmer nicely in the light and allowed golden yellows and hazy oranges to peer through it.

The nose was light and sweet showing soft wheat and vanilla. Actually, a lot of vanilla. Sweet touches of berries and light orange zest make their way to your nose easily with the softness of hay fields and light pale malts. It was really delicate with a light hint of spices and fresh vanilla cake. It was so perfect so far for the beach in the heat.

Letting the Vrienden flow into my palate was both soothing and quenching with a great wave of refreshing. I opened the bottle on ice out of the cooler, so it was probably cold around 7C (45F) - it was so perfect. It was about 30C outside and the sun was mercilessly hot waiting for its own beer. Let the Vrienden sooth the head, and gentle and effervescent wheat and soft vanilla glide across your tongue and tickle your cheeks and the top of your mouth.

It is light and gentle bringing layers of soft subtle flavors with it. Warm berries wake their way in showing touches of blueberry, mild cherry and melon. Even little hints of peaches and cream is noticeable. Soft is the key for this entire beer. It has lots of delicious flavors but they are all so soft and elegant; it really makes for a remarkable beer.

Soft and aromatic hops glide from the back adding a floral mellow sweetness to the beer - really it makes it very elegant. The pale malts and wheat are gently sweet with warning soft character, and the flowery and herbal hops add just enough light bitter and fresh crisp to balance this beer to perfection. It showed the vest lightest note of grapefruit tart and biscuit adding more character to a really fine wheat beer.

The carbonation is fine and very effervescent. Light coriander and spice mixes with orange zest and a touch of lemon to create a supremely refreshing wheat beer. The mouthfeel was as perfect as the beer - soft and light with rich character bringing with it waves of flavor.

The finish is soft and short with light sweetness and again hints of spice. It has a soft herbal hop bitter to help quench and clean your palate and does leave you both very satisfied but also looking for more.

Had this beer that was brewed with the help of the Dutch on tap at C'est What after walking through masses of Spanish fans cheering. It poured a light murky golden golden colour with a tight white head. I get a lot of spices in the smell, with some tangy lemon. The flavour certainly has the Belgian yeasty edge to it, with lemon and lots of spices. This is quite nice.

On-tap at Beer Bistro, in Toronto.

It literally looks like someone poured melted honey wax into the glass and let it solidify. Its colour and its complexion both resemble exactly that of a honey wax candle - good luck seeing through the thing! Its head is plush white, itself seemingly hard as wax too, and pure as the driven snow. Curiously, however, it accumulates no lacing.

This bouquet is buzzing like a chainsaw. It has that distinctively effervescent Belgian (err, make that Dutch) yeast that brims with nostril-prying esters and phenols. It boasts grain and spicy wheat and the incredibly perceivable deception of fresh cracked coriander and banana fruit. Our two special ingredients are thus far absent.

Speaking of which, the juniper berries only start to show as the beer has time to warm and even then they never amount to anything more than a footnote. Without the power of suggestion I might not have even noticed them at all. The maple syrup, on the other hand, is a much more perceptible contributor, albeit not so much in taste...

More so in mouthfeel. The syrup, I'm convinced, has thinned out the texture, enough to muddle some of the spicy, coarse graininess. The mouthfeel is actually neither too sweet nor all that toasted. It is, however, impressively (I mean, remarkably) creamy. Still, I find myself missing the zest of the style's more conventional orange peel and coriander.

In the end the idea of a collaboration commissioned by the Dutch embassy between a Dutch Trappist monastery (De Koningshoeven) and a microbrewery from my home province was more exciting than the resulting beer, which, it turned out, is something betwixt and between, agreeable but hardly enthralling. Still, it was enjoyed and made a fitting tribute to the friendship of two beer-loving countries!

Growler pour at Mondial de la Biere. Grabbed a good 10oz of this from the poorly-stocked free beer fridge in the exhibitor tent.

Hazy gold appearance looks almost cidery. A finger of white head soon settles to a film and puts down some lace spots. Spicy nose, with some sugar, grain and hay. Interesting notes from the Belgian yeast. Interesting herbal flavour, which wasn't at all noticeable in the nose. Great juniper notes, some good spicing and light brown sugar to offset a slight wheat tang. Seems a little light, though, both in body and flavour, which brings down what could otherwise have been something stellar. A great first collaboration though, and a quaffable summer beer.

On tap:

puts a clouded light gold ale in the glass, decent puffy bone white tight poured cap...moderate retention, good glass lacing.

Soft small bubble natural carbonation.

Thin nose; some sweetness, cereal, leafy hop and pine-like spice.

Very dry up front, dry biscuit malts against citrus and what seems like a light juniper herbal tone...clean dry finish. Very fresh tasting and quenching.

...a boilerplate domestic witbier. Vrienden is dutch for friends and I can see this easy drinking wit gain thirsty friends wherever it's on top.

Special beer commissioned by the Dutch Embassy for the Tulip Festival and the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands. First time a Canadian brewer has ever collaborated with a trappist brewery. Style is a Belgian wit with juniper berries and maple syrup, symbolic of the friendship between Canada and the Netherlands. Available on-tap at Mercury Lounge, "The House of Orange" during May.

Not the prettiest beer in the world, even by wit standards. A very murky white bordering on orange. Looks kinda like metamucil. Can't say much else about appearance, the Mercury Lounge doesn't believe in lights.

Very grainy nose, hay-like. A little bit of orange (though it may have been the slice they stuck on the rim of my glass), but where you'd usually have the coriander you get a subtle herbal bitterness.

The bitterness, the juniper berries I assume, come through in the taste. Herbal, medicinal, they give a very interesting and different flavour to the style. The malt profile is classic wit. Nice chewy cookie dough, with sharper wheat flavours. I think I caught some of the maple syrup in the finish. It was very faint, so I'm not sure whether I'm giving my taste buds more credit than they're due, but my girlfriend said she tasted it immediately.

It's good. I was suspicious of it when I heard about it, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It would be nice if Beau's could make this a seasonal.