Unibroue Maudite

Canada is not known for its craft beer. Oh sure, lately a few notables have sprung up, which I hope to review here in the near future, but most of the country is mired in Labatt and Molson hell. And sorry folks, what you might have believed is not in fact true: Canadian fizzy yellow lager is all but exactly the same as American fizzy yellow lager. It’s not stronger, it’s not “better”, and for that matter, it’s mostly owned by international conglomerates, just like its US counterparts.

So we turn to the godfather of Belgian-style beer in North America. Unibroue, outside Quebec City, has been brewing abbey-style — that’s like the venerated Trappist ales of Belgium and The Netherlands, just not brewed by actual monks — beers since the early 1990s, and today’s beer, Maudite (“The Damned One”), has been around virtually from the beginning. The legend of the Chasse-Galerie (the legend of the Flying Canoe) tells us that a group of lumberjacks struck a deal with the devil to fly home in their canoes, guided by Satan himself, to make it home in time for Christmas. Apparently Steve Martin wasn’t available, but in any case, they’re immortalized on the label, a work of art like most Unibroue labels. Yes, I know people who collect beer label artwork, and yes, Unibroue’s labels are nearly all frameable.

Maudite is essentially a Belgian-style Dubbel — strong, dark, and on the fruity side. At 8%, it’s going to pack a punch, especially drinking the entire 750ml bottle! I’ve been keeping this bottle at cellar temperatures for a couple of years, and while Unibroue recommends aging for up to eight years (the Best Before date on the back goes out less than that), I’m drinking this one somewhere in the middle of its projected lifespan. The aging will hopefully drop the hop aroma and flavor, and bring out more of the malt depth and complexity.

Thanks to a secondary fermentation in the bottle, like all Unibroue beers, Maudite pours a hazy coppery amber, with visible suspended particulate matter — the yeast from the bottle, is the bottle was agitated recently. It’s harmless, of course, and doesn’t really add or detract from the flavor of the beer. This is an active beer, and kicks up an enormous, rocky cream-colored head that drops off slo-o-o-owly over the course of drinking the entire glass.

The unmistakable aroma of the Unibroue yeast is present, that “I know this is a Belgian (-style) beer because it smells like one” profile, a little tart, lemony, and slightly sweet as well as, um, yeasty. It’s hard to describe, but if you drink a few different beers from Unibroue, you’ll notice something in common both in the nose and the flavor. Maudite adds a little sour cherry, or at least sourness, to the mix, just to set it apart, but that’s clearly from the darker malts in the grain bill.

Maudite tastes spicy, mellowing loads of alcohol and tannins amid a massive current of dark-fruit malt sweetness. It displays that “classic” Belgian flavor profile I mentioned regarding the aroma, too, as well as the Unibroue yeast byproduct flavor, repeated in everything in their lineup. As the beer warms, I can pick out the licorice in the spiciness, and a bit of hop bitterness appears, accentuated in the long, dryish finish that still allows the alcohol to poke through.

While I don’t count Maudite as a world-class Belgian-style beer, it’s a rather good beer, easy to find, and rather inexpensive at around $7-$8 per bottle, if you stay away from high-end stores. It’s corked and caged, like most big bottles of abbey beer, and it makes for great showmanship to uncork a bottle of this for unsuspecting friends and family. I’ve heard Unibroue called training-wheels Belgian beer, a stepping-stone to the classics. That’s not entirely true, but I like that pretty much anyone who loves Belgian beer has worked his or her way through Unibroue’s offerings. They’re a solid outfit with no real missteps, and Maudite is a great introduction to the dubbel style.