As promised in my post from last week, here I am again with a last post about Duvel for #BeerSaturday, this time about my experience with aging the beer. It’s a practise that I’ve learnt from my grandparents. Duvel was one of our “family beers” – the other was Westmalle Triple, one of the Belgian Trappist Beers. My grandparents always had 3 boxes of Duvel: 1 box was the fresh box, the second was the aging box and the third one the aged box.
Obviously when we drank Duvel, we would take a fresh one (Box 1). Box 1 would be easily replaced by a new Box 1 when (nearly) empty. For special occasions, or just when we felt for it, we took an aged Duvel from Box 3. Box 2 we’d never touch cause that one would replace Box 3 when empty. When Box 2 turns into a Box 3 it would be replaced by a new box 1, which wouldn’t be touched any more again till replacing a box 3. Like this we always had both fresh Duvel and old / aged Duvel available.
But what is now fresh and what is aged Duvel?
“Fresh Duvel” is like one would buy it from the shop and how it’s “supposed to be” drunken. I’m calling it fresh because of its fresh aromas. Compare it with the primery aromas of especially white wine. Freshness and sour are the main characteristics. Especially when drunken cold, one could get “trapped by the devil” and get easily drunk, cause the beer continues to ferment in the bottle. Be aware of the 8,5% alcohol!
I’ve noticed that this fermentation process is intersting till a certain point, let’s say somewhere between 1 and 2 , max 3 years over it’s expiry date, depending on the temperature which one stores it at. After that time it looses too much body. You can imagine that the “body” completely had gone for this bottle that has been “expired” for 6 years. But I drank it anyway and didn’t get sick / ill from it.
A small fun fact about y relation with Duvel: This beer is being brewed in the 4th generation at the Moortgat Brewery and I’m the 4th generation drinking and liking it in our family since also the father of my grandmother liked it very much, even till his last days in his 90’s.