St. Germanus
Birra Toccalmatto

St. Germanus looks as intimidating as its label. Murky coffee-bean brown, the beer is dark and opaque enough it might as well be black. No light is getting through or bouncing off it anyway. All it's missing is the fire and brimstone (well, and a head, but at 11% we can fairly overlook that).

Defining a beer's "style" is not quite as straightforward as is popularly thought, but Quad is one of those where we can definitively separate the bad from the good. This rich, complex, malty and Madeira-like aroma with its notes of date, prune, fig, raisin and spice smells exactly as it should.

And the taste is even better: more dried fruits, cocoa powder, gingerbread cookie, plum pudding, currant jam, and fig newton. I couldn't hazard a confident guess at which spices are used but pressed might say nutmeg, cardamom, or clove. This being Italian there's also distinct hints of anisette and black olive.

The best before date on the label states 2019 (5 years after it was brewed, 4 years from the time of writing). This at first struck me as an optimistic estimate but as I continue my way through the bottle I start to see it as more of a useful suggestion. Not that this isn't virtually perfect now - no alcohol presence, full bodied maltiness, ripe esters - but it's sure not going downhill anytime soon.

Neither Italy nor Spain share a border with Belgium but all three have in common a tremendous appreciation for food and drink and rank among the top gastronomic nations in the world. So it's no surprise a collaboration between the former resulted in a beer difficult to differentiate from the latter's most iconic offerings. Let me be clear: this is every bit as good as Westvleteren 12 or Rochefort 10.