Mass Live Chimay Blue Tasting

Sorry folks. Substitute the GMT for EDT and it makes sense. Might as well kick off now then since I've caused enough confusion.
My bottle, brewed last year has the typically recommended five year Best Before date/drinking window on the back label though from memory Chimay thinks at four years is best. I'm drinking mine from at room temp sans refrigeration from a Chimay goblet with the silver foil rim.

 

Drink. I'm opening as I type.

 

Nope. I lightly bumped my bottle around noon time and when I opened it I had a gusher. Required a bit of a clean up. Smells great though. Far better than I remember it last. Figs, plum and maybe a slight cough syrup quality too to sniff. Pretty penetrating and lasting aroma too. despite the gusher a pretty fine start.

 

Don't usually recall ever commenting on a beer's aural qualities but you can really hear the fizz as it goes in the glass. Thanks to a careful pour no yeast made it through to the glass though. The magnolia head does have a hard time retaining any sense of density on the beer and that mentioned fizziness gave it a bit of a carbonic bite.

 

Its probably just a bit beyond medium bodied with a slightly hazy reddish brown colour too. At the end of the palate there's a slight buttery maltiness though I find the start to middle palate to be fairly dilute with traces of candy sugar, some toffee, some medicinal qualities but without much convincing concentration of these.

 

Yep, the booze oozes its way forward over time. Never did get the port like qualities Michael Jackson use to claim for the Blue (always much more deeply figgy to me) but like a decent wine it has taken some time to unravel in the class. And for the first time I am getting that woodiness you mentioned. Definitely better than in the first few moments of the pour.

 

Incidently folks my bottle cost me a stupidly expensive £2.79 or about $4.25. The price I pay for convenience. A year and a half ago it wasn't more that £1.99 at another British supermarket. Yep, I know, more numbers but still none will be used in the description of this beer in any form from me.

 

1986 please. I had a standard 1986 Blue in 1991 and it remains one of the best beers I've ever had anywhere. Be super curious about that.

 

If this bottle disappointed me then I wouldn't have agreed but fortunately I'm really enjoying this. I'm also getting a bit of a cola quality coming through now too. Which is fine by me.

 

And over what period of time did Bill consume his bottle? Just over a half hour later and this is really starting to open up. Granted its still thinner than other beers in the style but I'm not finding this to be a major issue here. The nose is coming around again too.

 

I'm not sure. Until a half hour ago I would have said that's crazy but I'm been pleasantly surprised here. To me they're two very different interpretations of the style. The Blue is thinner with less density and concentration but it has surprisingly subtle complexity and suppleness while St Bernardus 12 is more forward and full. Still too soon for me to make any further judgements like that.