Leffe Blonde

Perspicacious.  That’s an interesting word.  I used to know what it means, I think.  I should look it up before it drives me crazy all day.  Un momento…  Ah, there we are!  Perspicacious: having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning.  Okay, I’m back in the knowing-what-perspicacious-means game!  Hold on, what’s this?  Often confused with perspicuous.  Hmm…  Perspicuous: clearly expressed or presented; lucid.  I can see how those are similar.  Most perspicacious people are likely also perspicuous.  Of course the former is more difficult than the latter.  Someone who is perspicuous could be clearly expressing drivel.  Or is it?  Someone with a connection to the autistic spectrum would probably disagree.  And I have witnessed very thoughtful people with keen insights get crushed in debate by deft rhetoric.  I guess we should strive for them together but be content with either and hopefully never fall short of both.

I should just let my musings sink in and then apply them to my reviewing and writing styles but I like to use them directly in a kind of zymurgic personification.  How does Leffe’s Blonde exhibit keen mental perception and how does it lucidly express it?  Concretely it doesn’t.  It’s water and sugar and alcohol after all.  But I can imagine.  If a baby can recognize faces on inanimate objects, I should be able to assess the cognitive abilities of a drink!  If it doesn’t work, no harm done.  If it does, I can call a psychiatrist.  Either way I get a beer.  Here is Leffe Blonde.

Well the color is clearly expressed!

That aroma does not beat around the bush.  It pops up right away saying “I’m Belgian and you love me!”  Sure there’s complexity in the nose between mild notes of astringency and banana, but they all point with one hand.  The flavor speaks of the joys of non-fruit Belgian beers.  It briefly mentions alcohol bite, yeast funk and horse blanket but never delves into any on them.  It even gives a small hint of that quintessential dry mouthfeel in the aftertaste.  Definitely perspicuous.  Short winded and prosaic.

As for its perspicacity, I’m drawing a blank.  It could have just hobbled the flavors together and chanced upon a good combination or it could have very particularly chosen every ingredient so as to exemplify the beer making tradition to which each is wed.  If I had to choose one I’d go with the latter simply because it’s more optimistic and optimism always makes life happier.  But I can’t seem to get inside the head of Leffe Blonde.  I guess my psychiatrist will have to spend today alone, sitting on the couch perspicaciously thinking about other people’s problems.

Leffe Brune

Zythology is funky sounding word.  One of those words you really only ever use to make yourself sound smarter than you are.  So it peaked my interest when I saw it on the website of today’s beer.  You are invited to become a zythologist by touring the Leffe brewery in Dinant, Belgium.  It’s appearance seemed oddly familiar and as I read further, that familiarity only grew.  I had seen this pathos heavy rhetoric somewhere else…  A few minutes later I got my answer, AB-InBev.  I should have known!  Almost everything they publish uses the exact same writing style and graphic design in the aim of eliciting feelings of vague excitement and pristine cleanliness.  This bottle of Leffe Brune may have been brought to me by the “King of Beers,” but it still sports a claim to the year 1240.  Lets see if tradition trumps modernity.

So far so good.

Well, looks solid.  I couldn’t get a good picture of it, but when held against strong light, that darkness reveals itself to be a delightful ruby.  Smells just right for a Belgian Abbey ale too, sweet with a tiny hint of the toasty notes found in the darker malts.  Heck, the head even did that thing where it recedes from the edges of the glass but continues to poof up in the middle.

Ooh, ich mag es so gern!

I like the flavor, which seems a slightly more astringent version of your standard British or American Brown Ale.  Or I guess it would be more accurate to say the British and American types are slightly less astringent versions of Leffe Brune.  The mouthfeel is fairly smooth with only a little sharpness perhaps from the yeast variety.  Or maybe it’s the hops.  Or the water.  What do you think I am, a zythologist?  But seriously, it either the yeast or the malt if they used chocolate or coffee.  It’s hard to say.

I wasn’t around to taste the beer in 1240, but my guess is that tradition has trumped modern capitalism in this case.  Leffe Brune strikes me as a very European beer from the bottle to the finish.  Definitely one I’ll be remembering. Maybe I should stop by Dinant for that brewery tour. Looks like it's hosted in a beautiful space. Also quite European.