THE TRAPPIST'S

Honestly, where have these beers been all my life! I firmly believe that had I trie one of these beers in my early days, I would likely be sporting a raging addiction to beer. As it is, these beers are sure to increase my beer consumption, adding to an already growing gut.

This past week my co-worker and I went to Ottawa to do an install. While there we went looking for a cool place to have dinner one night and enjoy a beer. We completely stumbled opon a pub called "Pub Italia" and were BLOWN AWAY! We have deemed this locale "Heaven on Earth", for two reasons. One: They have the most amazing muscles that are made in these insane sauces that are beer or alcohol based. and Two: The have over 200 different beers, including some of the hardest to find, obscure, yet completely superior beers in the world.

My co-worker had been telling me about these Belgian Beers that he tried at a beer and cheese night at a place called "Whole Foods" in Oakville. He said they were amazing and that they are made by Benedictine Monks in Belgium at their monasteries. These are called "Trappist" beers. They only make enough beer basically to cover their needs and give the profits to charity. Now this is cool but it means it is really hard to find their beer.

We went to this pub for two of our three nights there. I tried one Belgian beer that used to be a Trappist beer but recently has been producing it's beer at brewery, called Duvel. This is an easier to find Belgian beer, still hard, but at least at a few select pubs. Another, by far the best one I tried, is called Westmalle Dubbel, a true Trappist. Also tried was a Rochefort '10' that was equally amazing. Finally I tried a Maredsous '6' that like the Duvel is a former Trappist beer.

Since coming home I've spent hours calling pubs and looking online to find places in my area to get these beers and have been disappointed greatly to find that only one pub in Toronto is "PLANNING" on carrying these beers, called the Fat Belgian, and one pub called The Crooked Cue serves the Duvel but none of the others. So alas, my saddness is great and my desire for these beers grows at an alarming rate. I will be having the Duvel next Friday when I go to the Crooked Cue, but until then I'll be hunting like a madman for these beers. Crazy eh?

Confession for the Day: It strikes me as stupid and bizarre that this whole conserve energy with Air Conditioners is funded and promoted by the Six major energy suppliers in Canada as well as the Canadian Government. What company says, use our product but then starts a campaign to says stop using so much of our product. It's like if you go into Taco Bell and they you ask for six taco's and they try and shame you into only getting three. The only thing I can figure is that it must cost them more to import energy so much that when we use too much energy and they import, they actually lose profit. That's all that makes sense... anyways... peace out!