On Friday, 10 June, for Philly Beer Week, I attended Lunch with Bobo at Memphis Taproom. I thought maybe there would be a quick post about it. Boy was I wrong.
Bobo is Bobo van Mechelen, who has promoted various Belgian beers in the USA for about 30 years. Traveling extensively, he's a living legend that many people all over the USA have met over the decades.
On that Friday, I stated my day at 4:30 am to get a number of to dos done, with my planned route coming to a finale at Memphis around when they open at 11:30am. I found myself kicking my to dos out quickly and arrived quite early. After a stroll around the rapidly changing neighborhood, I contently parked myself in an Adirondack chair in front of Memphis and patiently waited for them to open.
Right in front of me, Bobo's Uber arrived exactly at 11:30 am. After he got out, I reintroduced myself and had an opportunity to ask about something I had been curious about for a few years now.
The Austin Mystery... Solved!
This part is a history lesson. If history bores you, please move onto the next part, which is all about Chimay. I won't know and so can't be offended. On the other hand, it's free, so what do you have to lose?
At some point, one of the beer reps brought Bobo to my then weekly Tuesday office hours in the Grey Lodge MGMT Bunker. I recall asking Bobo where he lived. He told me Austin, TX. The conversation moved on.
Sometime later I remembered that Pierre Celis started Celis Brewing in Austin, after departing Hoegaarden. Was that a coincidence?
Turns out... no.
Bobo's family has been in the bar/restaurant business in his home town of Leuven, Belgium for four generations. At the restaurant, Bobo befriended two American law students who were studying in Leuven. Later Bobo visited his friends in Austin, and eventually decided to start a Belgian bar/restaurant there.
The two former students, now lawyers, wanting to drink Belgian beer in the USA, started an import company to make that happen. One of the beers they imported was Hoegaarden, which is how Pierre Celis ended up visiting Austin. Bobo eventually got out of the restaurant business to work full time with his friends.
For those who don't know the story of Pierre Celis. Pierre was a milkman who loved Witbier. However the style was rapidly disappearing as breweries switched over to just making pilsner. In 1966 he decided to start his own brewery to save the style. After years of growth, reinvestment, and debt, in 1985 the brewery burned down. It wasn't insured, and Pierre had to bring in and eventually sell out to InterBev, then a large Belgian brewery. Well large for Belgium. Hoegaarden would be one of the first conquests for what would become the AB InBev borg.
Putting that behind him, Pierre opened Celis Brewing in Austin. In the mid 1990s, demand for Celis White was white hot. To meet demand, they partnered up with Miller Brewing. Miller eventually bought out the other half of Celis Brewing and for some reason immediately closed it. The Celis brand was eventually sold to a brewery in Michigan at some point, and then was sold to a Belgian brewery which still makes Celis White in Belgium. Eventually Miller would get absorbed into SAB Miller, which in turn would get absorbed into AB InBev.
Chimay - There's Actually News
Currently Bobo works for Chimay, probably of the most famous of the Belgian Trappist breweries. BTW for those who don't know, it's pronounced sh-may.
When I was in the bar business, we did a few Keep the Chalice events with Chimay over the years. The options never changed: Premiere (aka Red label) - which is pretty much a dubbel, Grande Reserve (aka Blue) - which is pretty much a quad, and Cinq Cents (aka White) - a tripel. Chimay has been brewing since 1862; Trappists don't fix what ain't broke.
To my pleasant surprise, there was an addition to line up, the green labeled Cent Cinquante. It's a 10% hoppy golden ale. Well hoppy for a Trappist beer; don't expect an IPA. At 10% I knew it would be my only beer since I was driving. Cent Cinquante is a delicious, well balanced beer, that hides it's double digit ABV dangerously well. This sipper is a beer to celebrate with.
Cent Cinquante actually came out a few years earlier as part of an extremely limited variety pack that was so limited almost no one even heard of it. And even fewer ever tasted it. With sales of Belgian beers slowing in the crowded US beer market, Chimay needed another beer for the line-up. They found the perfect addition.
What... a 5th Chimay?!?! Dorée is a 4.8% golden ale. Most Trappist breweries have a lower ABV house ale that is brewed for their monks to drink. The few I have had, at monastery tasting rooms, were good, but nothing to write home about. They don't leave the brewery for a reason.
Well there's more to this story. The brewer who developed the Cing Cents tripel for Chimay thought the monks' beer was lacking and offered to come up with something better. And did he. The monks beer was unlabeled and crowned with a generic gold cap. It became known at the monastery as Doree, which Bobo told me means gold.
Dorée is another perfect addition to their line-up. A lot of mature breweries tend to over correct to respond to the ever changing beer market, and end up flopping around like a beached fish. Chimay has avoided that trap and has really done it right.
And I got to safely drink a second beer before heading home.
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