Forget champagne; what a beer!

GEOFF GRIGGS

I guess my mother-in-law must have finally forgiven me for marrying her daughter, because for my birthday last July she bought me a $50 bottle of beer. I was mightily impressed I can tell you. And very grateful.

Needless to say I don't often see, let alone buy, beers of that price, so I've been saving it for a special occasion. That occasion came last weekend.

On Sunday Pip and I had a few friends around for dinner to celebrate the arrival of a friend's wife who's just shifted here from down south.

Dinner was a casual affair – barbecued sausages and kebabs, served with salad and baguette – but I was keen to welcome our new friend with my special bottle of beer.

And Bosteels Deus really is something special. First up, it really looks the part. Smartly presented in one of those old-fashioned, skittle-shaped champagne bottles, it comes complete with foil-wrapped cork and capsule and a shiny pale golden label identifying the beer as the "Brut des Flanders". But it's not just a smart bottle and hefty price tag that Deus shares with France's most famous sparkling wine. Although the beer is brewed in Belgium – at the Bosteels family's chateau-brewery near Antwerp – after primary fermentation it is dosed with priming sugar and a Champagne yeast, before being shipped by road to Epernay in the heart of France's Champagne region.

On arrival it is bottled and refermented for three or four weeks then given a year or more maturation at cellar temperature. Then, employing the traditional methode champenoise process, over several weeks the bottles are slowly rotated and inverted to encourage the yeast to fall into the neck of the bottle. The bottle neck is then frozen and the plug of yeast is removed. This process is known as degorgement. The bottle is then corked, caged, foil-sealed and labelled.

So what does a beer that costs $50 a bottle look and taste like?

As you might imagine, I've been itching to find out. Now, having tried it, I'm smitten.

I'd chilled the bottle in the fridge for an hour or so – in retrospect it probably should have been longer – and had elected to serve the beer in flutes. The cork came out with a healthy pop and the beer frothed as it emerged into the glasses before settling to reveal a pale golden hue beneath a deep, brilliant white and mousse-like head. The whole experience was identical to serving a bottle of champagne and I had to remind myself this was beer.

But then it got better!

First brewed in 2002, Deus (the name means "God") has the most remarkable aroma of any beer I've ever encountered. It's a luscious and heady cocktail of sweet fruit, herbs and a hint of spice. Forget about trying to detect malt and hops, Deus's aroma is more wine-like, mostly the result of the multiple fermentations and extended maturation. I found myself clutching for descriptors! Instead of attempting to describe the beer further I'll defer to the golden words of three noted beer writers who reviewed Deus for the US-based All About Beer magazine. Garrett Oliver, who as well as writing about beer is the senior brewmaster at New York's Brooklyn Brewery, first noted the beer's "meringue-like head and creamy, pinpoint carbonation", before identifying grapey sweetness, lemon peel, pears, ginger and all-spice in the aroma. The English writer Michael Jackson found "clover in the bouquet; and juicy dessert apple in the middle palate; but it was not until the finish that I shared Garrett's all-spice". Oliver's summation of Deus was definitive: "A heady perfume blossoms, slips silkily on the tongue, a spirituous warmth, a fine, dry, finish. It's stunning. I've never had anything like it." Meanwhile America's longest-serving beer writer, Fred Eckhardt, who has been reviewing beers since the 1970s, was equally unequivocal; "These aromatics are something to remember: Truly fresh apples, amplified by mint, thyme lemon. I don't think I have ever tasted a better beer." In his book Michael Jackson's Great Beers of Belgium Jackson noted: "As if that testimonial were not enough, Fred sealed it with a dismissal of that other bubbly drink: `Alongside Deus' he asserted, `champagne is boring.' Boring or not, there's no doubt champagne sets a standard for price. And now, so too does Deus. After hearing complaints from beer lovers about the cost of Deus, Garrett Oliver responded: `Stop whining and pony up. It's worth every penny'."

In his book Jackson also offered his opinion as to the best occasion to enjoy Deus. He suggested Christmas Day, "while the presents were being unwrapped", while Eckhardt "proposed it be served to usher in the New Year". I was more than happy to open my bottle for our friends last weekend – even if, as it turned out, our guest of honour isn't a fan of alcoholic drinks. Oh well, all the more for the rest of us!

Cheers!

Deus is currently unavailable in New Zealand but the Hamilton-based online retailer Beer Store (beerstore.co.nz) anticipates a shipment within two months.

- The Marlborough Express