Last Wednesday, Brad and I went to The Dove Pub in Hackney for an even of beer tasting. Surrounded by 30 other beer enthusiasts, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. We were later joined by our friend, Ben, who managed to score a place also.

The beer tasting was sponsored by Palm Brewery. Their product director appeared to walk us through the beer tasting and tell us more about the beer, the brewers and how to enjoy it :)

First up, was a trio of wild ferment, Boon beers. We tasted the Boon Framboise, Boon Gueuze and Boon Marriage Parfait. Boon beers are a sour type of beer which spontaneously ferments in open casks and ripens in barrels for more than two years. It’s during this maturation process that the fruity esters are produced which gives it the unique taste.

To make the Boon Framboise, they add fresh raspberries. It’s a lovely beer, which isn’t as sickly sweet as some fruit beers. Very drinkable. The Boon Gueuze re-ferments in the bottle and gives it a distinct wine taste. It was very fresh tasting, reminiscent of apples. Finally, the Boon Marriage Parfait is part of a very small release that the brewery does of vintage lambic beer. It’s slightly more intense than the other two Boon beers and has an intense, malty flavour. Whilst we were tasting the Boon beers, they served Belgian style chips and mussels. Yum!

Next up was the Regional Specialities, served with two types of cheese, biscuits, grapes and celery. We tasted Palm, Rodenbach and Rodenbach Grand Cru.

Palm beer was born out of an attempt to brew a heavier beer with 5% alcohol, or as they call it in Belgian, a light beer! It’s amber coloured and brewed by an infusion method. It results in a full bodied and well balanced, bittersweet beer. Very good session beer. The Rodenbach beer was my favourite of the evening. Young beer is mixed with beer that is at least 2 years old which results dark, flavour rich beer. The taste was reminiscent of dried fruits and brown sugar. The Rodenbach Grand Cru uses a similar process, but uses slightly more older beer in the mix. The taste is quite distinct from the normal Rodenbach, still dark but has a mild sour note.

Finally we moved to the Steenbrugge Abbey Beer, served with a mixture of Thai starters which included fishcakes, vegetable spring rolls and prawn toasts.

We started with the Steenbrugge Wit beer which was typical of most white beers, refreshing with a unique taste from the herb mixture they use in the beer. The Steenbrugge Blond was a warm, full-bodied beer. More of a session beer again, very drinkable. Finally, the Steenbrugge Bruin, which was a darker, sweeter beer. The Bruin had to be my favourite of the three, however I tend to be biased towards those sort of beers. We finished the Steenbrugge Bruin with a Belgian chocolate, which went well with the flavours of the beer.

I’d like to thank the Palm Brewery and the Dove Pub for putting on such a wonderful evening, all for a small donation to St Joseph’s Hospice which is located just down the road from us and the pub. St Joseph’s Hospice looks after people who have life-limiting illnesses. Whilst they do receive about 40% of their budget from the government, the rest of it comes from public donations. I just donated £20 since I didn’t bring any cash with me on the night.