How I fell For Chimay?

How I fell for “Chimay”?

What was My First Beer?

My First beer was a Cocktail of Rasana (summer drink in Chennai) and Mini Marco Polo,

The usual 35 degree Celsius summer at Chennai and eagerness of the age of adolescence pondered me and my friend to dig on this crazy idea for this cocktail.

Don’t think the proposition was justified as the fermented barley failed to let go of our tongues. Which made us eventually forget beer for another 2 years?

Grown up in Chennai…Beer drinking here was considered to a crime and the tag of addiction can rue one off easily.

Over the few years due to my exotic ventures I was able to taste and relish beers from different parts of the globe.

Corona /Ceviche were my companions on the beaches of Cancun and Couzumel,

Say Ocho Rios of Jamaica Out comes the Red Stripe

Upstate New York I was forced to grab Guinness with some of my Irish friends

Labbat Blue was the saga in Halifax Canada

Nastro Azzurro once at Milan

But Beer’s Like Budweiser, Stella Arros, Sam Adams have always been there for me when it mattered the most , weather its catching up the Philles & Yankees (Baseball) or for that matter Eagles tussling it out with the Titans(NFL).

Old city Philadelphia, staying there is a Unique experience, I was fortunate enough to stay there for over three years, It’s a stunning place to experience food from diverse cultures starting from the French Influence of the “La Bec Fin” to the Sizzling Oriental of “Penang of the Old China town” and not to forget numerous pubs and Bars which is where one would find me on the week ends.

Just before the Premier show of “The Da Vinci Code” some Irish friends and I were caught in a healthy conversation about the Plots of of Dan Brown (all of us had read the book a year ago) That’s when Patrick (Sings country music at a pub used be a waiter with sound knowledge of beers) splashed in the idea of hitting the “Eulogy Belgian Tavern”. As we got there we learnt that Patrick had worked here some 3 years back.

As we entered we were awestruck by the Phrase what was lit up at the signage it read.
“Beer’s Advertised in Television Not Sold Here”

I was cursing Patrick for this sinful deed what he has brought down upon us ““No Beers”

What Sort’ a Joint is this Anyway?

When all ebbed? I realized I was in for some adventure.

We were six of us Multi colored and multi nationals,

We had couple of Indians, a Korean, a Hispanic decent and couple of Irish in our midst.

Patrick was hopping around every one of us and asking how we feel’ (guess he was trying to feel the pulse or read our mind to sway with the mood)

For once we all were on the same page …we all felt that Patrick has gone Insane.

In a wink and thereabouts we saw Patrick hit down the stairs from the bar with Seven bottles of peculiar shapes and sizes. He comes up close to us and says,

“Cheer’s the real Beers one to suit each one of your mood swings”

And I couldn’t trace my memory of seeing any of them on the TV commercials.

Mine was the “Chimay”…Patrick said it’s because it will make me think more clearly
(Cos I have been more questions about “Da Vinci Code” which was not making any sense)

And he gave me a different kind of beer goblet saying it will taste much better cos of the aroma which Chimay expertise’s while fizzing.

The Experience was Devine and asked Patrick about the details of the fella.

The Chimay Brewery ("Bières de Chimay") is a Belgian brewery founded inside Scour Mont Abbey, in the Belgian municipality of Chimay in 1862
The brewery produces three widely distributed ales and a passerby exclusively for the monks; they are known as Trappist beers because they are made in a Trappist monastery.

Wow “monks have produced the beer which iam enjoying”…..

Of the world's 171 Trappist monasteries, seven produce beer (six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands). Only these seven breweries are authorized to label their beers with the Authentic Trappist Product logo that indicates compliance to various rules edited by the International Trappist Association

I chugged in 3 of the little fella (8% ABV)…I guess I require a totem now Chimay was extracting loads of things which I Knew about “DVC”.

I fell in Love then “It was just an evening” can’t get the fella out of ma dreams since then…………..

Johnson Ebenezer