The beer aficionado's among you may have heard that our most famous Duvel brewery did something special again.
No whiskey this time, but they kept using barrels.
This time they put Duvel in bourbon barrels for 6 months.
The result; Duvel Barrel Aged.
Today was the "official" release date, when it would be available in stores.
And because of this limited availability (24.750 bottles of 75cl) i took half a day off from work to go search for it.
At first i went to our local supermarket, which according to the press release should have it in stock. But ... they didn't.
Then i called to 2 other stores around to hear if they had it, but again, same story. "Maybe" tomorrow or next week.
I wasn't gonna go that vacation go to waste, so i called 2 local beer distribution shops. But again, they too didn't have it in store.
Then i turned to my last option: Untappd.
I checked where other people bought it, and i found a store in Lokeren. (mind you, i'm from Antwerp, 40km's away).
Called them, and for sure, they had some. I asked if they could keep 2 bottles on the side for me, which she was very willing to.
Into the car, and 45 minutes later i got there. And i tried to press my luck and asked if they had more bottles in store and if they were willing to sell them to me.
And so i came into possession of 4 bottles of this glorious Duvel Barrel Aged.
But then it hit me, i need the appropriate glasses to drink from. And the card in the box suggested 16,5cl degustation glasses. Which i didn't have, yet.
So my journey continued, to the Duvel brewery itself and have a visit of their official store.
But then it hit me, again! They have Duvel cheese. But again i pressed my luck, but w/o success this time. I had to go to the cheese maker themselves: Van Tricht.
So ... journey blabla.
And boy, did i find cheese.
And not only that, but somewhat of another unicorn too. The
Horal Geuze Megablend 2017.
And to top it off, when i came home i found a parking spot at about 100m from my door. Which is a rare thing in this city center.
So my loot from today:
I'm a sucker for gadgets.
So my journey for today, 117km of driving around.
Those of you familiar with Belgium, and it's traffic, know that this was indeed a great journey.
A day i hopefully don't have to repeat anytime soon.