Forget the text, this is wit(bier) without peer

Blanche de Namur
Brasserie du Bocq, Purnode, Belgium
750 mL bottle with champagne cork
No. 143351
Sampled: Jan. 21, 2007 in a Unibroue tulip glass

As white/blanch/wit/wheat beers from Belgium go, this handle ranks as the palest I've seen. However, from that diluted lemonade body emerges a sharp, intricate nose of orange and lemon.

Before I tread further, I must remark on Blanche de Namur's label text, which sounds as if someone new to English wrote it, beginning with "I am a bottle-fermented white beer." After I tasted it, though, the laughter stopped. The instructions on how to pour it for maximum flavor aren't for joking, either, when it gives this ale a broad yet mellow complexity.

More sparkling and bubbly than a typical Belgian white - a cork and a little shelf time heaps new dimensions on a bottle-conditioned wheat ale - the Blanche de Namur also possesses a mellow streak unlike other whites I've sampled.


Upon sampling, it comes up with a more diverse fruity bouquet, with traces of pineapple and even peach working into the flavor. I've never run into those tastes in beer beside lambics, but they work here.

White ale standards coriander and licorice (it's slight, but it rises in the finish) also figure into the mix. mind you, these flavors mingle, but they're hardly intense - that works well for me.

Too many attempt to get in the drinker's senses by overloading the ingredients. Sometimes, it's better to drop back and let it go. This white is cloudy like the others, but the orange and coriander dovetail nicely into each other.

As I finished my first bottle, I found myself wishing for a few more - this is a first-class white ale.
Two hours in the fridge before sampling drops its temperature close to the recommended 40 degrees. Shaking the bottle enough to stir the contents at the bottom is essential to these tastes; otherwise, you might as well go with whatever white you stumble upon.

Rating 9.5/10