I always enjoy drinking a new beer I’ve never had before.  It’s almost never undrinkable swill, and adds a nice element of surprise and discovery.  So it was nice to find some local beer in bottles we could drink at home, and not have to go to the castle to get it.

In our local organic/alternative grocery store, we found a few bottles from Brouwerij de Leckere in Utrecht.  I really liked the Witte Vrouwen, a cloudy wheat beer with a nice grassy, spicy taste and a little creamy.  The Paulus was less interesting — a pale ale with a little bit of biscuit malt, but not much flavor at all.

At the fabulous Bert’s Bierhuis in Utrecht, Wind found a couple bottles from De 7de Hemel (7th Heaven).  They’re not exactly local — they’re near the German border in the southeastern part of the Netherlands.  Donder (Thunder) was a great find — a dark, nutty, earthy Belgian dark ale, which reminded me quite a bit of Cigar City’s Maduro (one of my favorite beers from back home).  The Vorst (Frost), on the other hand, was very strange.  The aroma was spicy and sweet, but the flavor was dominated by bitter mint and resiny notes.  This was a big surprise since I was expecting a more traditional dark, gingery winter ale.

So half the beers turned out to be very good, and the other half not so much.  But De 7de Hemel has quite a few more beers, so we’re going to give them a try soon.  The Donder was good enough to give me hope that they’ll have a few more really fantastic brews.