CulturAle Press

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS #3: La Trappe Quadrupel Quercuseik (Oaked), Koningshoeven, Netherlands

Date:  December 27, 2018

The Story—  This is an Ex Post Facto (sorry) entry for the third of our 12 beers of Christmas.   Find earlier posts with these links:  first, second,

La Trappe beers are the modern marketing label for the Koningshoeven Abbey, founded on farmland in 1881.   The monks quickly added a brewery to pay for expansion of the abbey — which started in a sheep barn and the strategy worked.   A dalliance with Stella Artois began in 1969 and, happily for craft fans, ended in 1979.  A modernized brewery followed shortly after.  It spelled the end of the historic open fermentors, but ensured a production capacity that can come much closer to meeting demand.

The brewery produced La Trappe Quadrupel Quercuseik — a quad– for the first time in 1991.   Begun as a winter seasonal offering it proved popular enough to justify year-round production.  We had this version of the La Trappe Quad and one of the best beer bars in the history of the world, the Kulminator in Antwerp, Belgium.   Kulminator is mom and pop operation that feels more like your grandmother’s house than a commercial bar and breweries practically trip over themselves to be among the offerings.   This oaked version of the quad was available in tiny quantities and only on draft.   You’ll have more luck finding the regular version and that one is still a pretty special beer for celebrating the season

The Beer—  Hugely complex.  Smooth cherry fruit and toasted malt with a sweet wood foundation.  We rated it well into the top 1% of beers we have tasted.

Value —  Very good.   Maybe a steal, really, at $8.75 for a good sized draft of this 10% marvel.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

It’s The Season!!   Through January 6th (Twelfth Night) we’ll give your this year’s list of the Twelve Beers of Christmas.  We’ve tasted close to 200 beers brewed for the season; they’re not all good elves, but a great many are as talented as Rudolph for getting us through a foggy winter’s night.

We know, we promised a count down to the New Year with descriptions of some of our favorite beers from the last five years.   In those years we’ve published Drinking in the Culture, and gotten a good start on a drinking/sleeping guide to the Mid Atlantic and a guide to great beers is supposed “bad beer cities” — the tourist meccas of Europe. But goodness, Grinch, what about all the holiday beers??  So we’ll detour and pick up the top ten list in the new year.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is iour response to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”