It’s Wednesday night—what’s for dinner? I dreamed about this meal all day at work, and it turned out perfectly. It was exactly what we needed to get over the hump. Have you ever planned a meal around a drink? I built this entire dinner around the beer!
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| Frosty mugs and all |
Food First
Make this easy one-skillet meal: slice and pan-fry Dutch yellow potatoes with turkey kielbasa, and serve a green salad on the side. We tried Trader Joe’s Turkey Kielbasa for the first time and highly recommend it.
The monastic community has brewed Chimay, an authentic Trappist beer, inside their monastery since 1862. Only six Belgian beers—Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, Westvleteren, and Achel—earn the “Trappist” appellation.
The ingredients are simple: water, malted barley, wheat starch, sugar, hop extract, and yeast. For the Rouge and Bleu varieties, the brewers use malt extract for coloring.
Chimay types
- Chimay Rouge (Red), 7% abv. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Première. It is a dark brown color and has a sweet, fruity aroma.
- Chimay Bleue (Blue), 9% abv darker ale. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Grande Réserve. This copper-brown beer has a creamy head and a slightly bitter taste. Considered to be the “classic” Chimay ale, it exhibits a considerable depth of fruity, peppery character. Our choice for tonight
- Chimay Blanche (White), or Chimay Triple, 8% abv golden tripel. In the 75 cl bottle, it is known as Cinq Cents. This crisp beer bears a light orange colour, and is the most hopped and driest of the three.
- Chimay Dorée (Golden), 4.8% abv ale, brewed from very similar ingredients as the Red, but paler and spiced differently. It is a patersbier, intended only to be drunk at the abbey or at the nearby inn Auberge de Poteaupré, which is associated with the abbey. The monks themselves drink this variety rather than the stronger three. The Dorée is not sold commercially and the rare bottles which make their way out are through unofficial sources. Even the brewery’s own web site makes no mention of this variety. (courtesy of Wikipedia)
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| Cooper wishing this was his dinner. |
Our love of Chimay drove us to visit Belgium during our European beer tour. Cedric shared a travel journal about Ghent, Bruges, and Brussels here.
Cheers,
Amy