Chouffe: Sans Alcool (Belgium: low Alcohol: 0.4% ABV)
Visual: Lightly hazy yellow gold body. Thin white dust of a head. Very small amounts of small bubbled carbonation.
Nose: Lightly bready. Coriander. Grated carrot. Mild hop character and bitterness. Mineral water.
Body: Mineral water. Light hop character and bitterness. Light chalk. Soft lemon. Bready.
Finish: Light chalk. Light lemon. Light orange. Coriander. Carrot.
Conclusion: This reminds me of the more mineral water tasting, lower abv, Trappist beers. The ones they make at a lower abv so the monks can actually drink them during the day. Those Trappist beers can be good, but oft suffer with the lower abv so can be hit or miss. This has an abv of 0.4% so has all the difficulty those masters of brewing have and then some.
A hint right at the front, do not chill this down more than the slightest touch – with the low abv it seems it does not have the body to react well to this so ends up super thin with the mineral water like elements utterly dominating.
Warmer it gains a breadier malt body to give some weight to it, and some soft lemon and orange notes – until that point the beer was really riding on the carrot and coriander notes which erm, well are nice as part of a beer when used right but should never be the main stay.
Even with the boost from a bit of heat this feels very lacking. Chouffe has always been very led by sweetness from the malt in my experience so it is not much of a surprise that it struggles with this low abv version. I guess they need more practice and experience to make this low abv version get its own style rather than rely on that malt.
For now though it is not very good.
Background: I’m generally a fan of Le Chouffe’s beers – not all have hit the spot, it isn’t one where I have to try every new release, but generally I enjoy my time with them. So I was intrigued to see this alcohol free version turn up in Independent Spirit. Post Japan I’m having a few low alcohol days as I had a bit more than usual then, so this fitted perfectly into that slot as one to try. Music wise I went back to Le Tigre – Feminist Sweepstakes. Still on a bit of a buzz with their music from seeing them just before the Japan holiday.
