My business partner Paul every now and then spends a few hours on the phone or eagerly refreshing a website to ensure he is allowed to buy 1 or 2 cases of beer brewed by the Westvleteren Trappist monks of the Saint Sixtus abbey. Then he drives down to Belgium with a friend to pick up a dozen or two bottles at a time.

A while ago he got the opportunity to make an extra trip: due to the pandemic lockdowns not all who had made reservations were able to do the pick-up. He gave me and my other business partners a bottle.

The bottle of Westvleteren 12 is a dark beer coming in at 10% alcohol, so not something for the warm summer days when I received the bottle.

Today however was a perfect fall day. Sunny and clear, not cold but nice enough, leaves falling, geese flying overhead to their winter destinations.
So today was the day to enjoy this beautiful dark beer, voted the best beer in the world a few times over. I’m not sure about that, wouldn’t want to make presumptions. But it was tasty, not too sweet, I like my beers on the more bitter end of the spectrum. Enjoyed it with a few nuts and some locally sourced Metworst (dried sausage).

Westvleteren don’t have labels, they differ only in the color of their caps to indicate the type.