Brasserie de la Senne's Taras Boulba - Beer Review and Food Pairing

This week I'm reviewing Brasserie de la Senne's Taras Boulba. It's a bright, sessionable golden ale that I have been hearing a lot about for the last few years. I've finally found a few bottles at a local Binny's. They were $3.99 for an 11.2 oz bottle, and worth every penny. I paired this flaxen beauty with Fromager d'Affinois Poivre, a wonderful soft French cheese, similar to Brie, flavored with black pepper.

 

I like using Randy Mosher's template from Tasting Beer when doing my reviews. I list the appearance category first however, because, as the Belgians say, you take the first taste of beer with your eyes. WARNING: Do not attempt to drink beer with your eyes.

 

The beer was decanted from an 11.2 oz bottle into a stemmed tulip glass. It was chilled in the refrigerator for around two hours before I tasted it. It was not tongue-numbingly cold, but the depth of aroma and flavor definitely improved as it warmed up slightly.

 

Appearance:

 

Large bubbles. Consistently held 1/8" ribbon of head after the initial foaming settled down. A slight swirl of the glass quickly brings head to 1/4" thickness. Big bubbles continue to rise upward and settle on the surface like a betta's nest. Golden ale appearance; SRM is somewhere between a Pilsner and a Dortmunder. Fairly turbid appearance with a snow globe of yeast particles. I tried not to pour out too much sediment, as with homebrew or other bottle-conditioned beers, but decanting some of it was unavoidable. Still has a pretty attractive sunny hue in spite of that.

 

 

 

Aroma:

 

Bracing and clean; light citrus note. Has a slight Pilsnery character. Smells sweeter as the glass warms up; peach character, slight Muscat grape tone. Marketed as "extra hoppy ale" but definitely not a wall of lupulin in the nose; balanced.

 

Body and Texture:

 

Denser body than I expected from the appearance; moderate amount of residual sugars detectable. Far less earthy and spicy than many other Belgians. Resembles a saison on some level, but lacks the same coriander/cracked pepper flavor. Clean like an American pale ale, but less bracingly hoppy.

 

Aftertaste:

 

Very clean; a very balanced beer. Slight malt sweetness and mild grassy hop note lingers gently on the back of your tongue. The flavor hops are really the star; the hop bitterness is restrained, while the hop aroma is not so aggressive that other notes are lost.

 

Overall:

 

At 4.5% ABV, Taras Boulba is a great lawnmower beer. I would drink it by the barrelful if it was more widely available and a little cheaper. It is a good gateway Belgian ale for those who want to try something a little different but may not be ready for the herbal, earthy, spicy, horse blanket, clovey, or medicinal qualities that some of the other ones have. In spite of lacking some of these more aggressive characteristics, Taras Boulba is by no means boring. It manages to be flavorful, balanced, and sessionable all at the same time; quite a feat for the age of "go big or go home" craft beers.

 

Food Pairing:

 

Pairing Taras Boulba with Fromager d'Affinois Poivre brought a new depth to the tasting.

 

The poivre has a cheez whizzy texture (in a good way!). It is grassy with a strong, but not overpowering, black pepper flavor. The rind is a lot like what you see on Brie, Camembert, or other soft cheeses, but it packs a punch. It is infused with bits of cracked pepper, and it is good in small doses.

Pairing this cheese with Taras Boulba shows a depth to the malt that was less noticeable when drinking it alone. The savory peppery saltiness of the cheese brings the slight bready sweetness of the beer to the foreground. A beer with a slightly more aggressive bittering hop presence would peel the unctuous quality of the cheese away from the tongue more effectively, yet pairing these two together definitely takes the exploration of Taras Boulba to another level.