Not your average brewski: Belgian strong ale fetches $16 a bottle
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$1 per week for 24 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $4.00 plus GST every four weeks. After 24 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.99/week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $16.99 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $23.99 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/08/2012 (4968 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
IF you’d like to try what many connoisseurs consider to be the finest beer in the world, you’ll have to get out your wallet.
A six-pack of Westvleteren 12, a Belgian strong ale with 10 per cent alcohol, will set you back $85 (including a pair of beer glasses) at a Manitoba Liquor Control Commission outlet, or a little more than $96 with taxes. That works out to more than $16 per 330-millilitre bottle.
“It’s definitely the most expensive beer we have ever sold,” said Al Bowness, manager of specialty purchasing.
If you’re suddenly thirsty, you’ll have to move quickly, too. About 35 MLCC stores around the province received 400 of the six-packs last week and already half of them are gone.
Westvleteren 12 is so expensive because fewer than 200,000 bottles are made every year and almost all of it is sold in Belgium. “You have to make an appointment and go to the brewery to buy it. They allocate it. You can’t buy 25 cases. They tell you what you can buy,” Bowness said.
There are only seven beers in the world that carry the Trappist monks’ logo and six of them are from Belgium. Bowness said the MLCC typically carries about four of them at any one time, but Westvleteren 12 is the most difficult to get.
“We never thought we would ever carry it. This is a one-time production (for export) in order to make money for renovating their monastery,” he said.
When the announcement was made that Westvleteren 12 was going to be made available in Canada, Bowness thought the MLCC was too small to merit any consideration. So, when he got the call offering him 100 cases, he didn’t hesitate.
“I said, ‘When? Whatever you can give us, we’ll take it,’ ” he said. “Typically, I would have balked at $85 for beer but I just knew all the beer guys would be lined up for this.”
Local connoisseur Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson said it is no Budweiser.
It pours a “hazy, walnut” colour with a thick beige head and the nose brings “beautiful brown sugar, raisin, toffee, lightly roasted malt and a hit of spice without seeming sweet.”
“It’s easily one of the best I’ve ever tried,” he said.
geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca