Kulminator
Now this is what I call a Beer Bar! With well over 550 beers available from bottle and tap, you are sure to find a truly amazing brew. Dirk and his wife Leen take great pride in their collection of incredible beers and have a glass to go with it, giving each beer the respect of having served it as the brewer intended.
We start the evening off with a 1999 Malheur Millennium. This eight year old brew had wonderful malt notes of honey, light caramel and a touch of vanilla.
Our next beer, brought out deep from the cellar is Bush’s Millennium Cuvée 2000. The 1.5 liter bottle shows its signs of age, giving this precursor beer to Bush Prestige, lots of similarities to a French Cognac. Hints of raisin, caramel, light toffee work together to hide the 13% alcohol of this beer, almost like it’s not even there… There are some soft spices from the yeast that play on the tongue, leaving an almost dry finish.
Next up, a 750 ml of Rodenbach Grand Cru from 2000. This beer has the original yeast; Palm has since bought Rodenbach and made some changes. The Flemish Red had a depth of complexity, hints of oak, dried fruits, cherries, apples, some caramel sweetness, balanced out by a soft sour, that would end in a almost dry finish on the tongue. This aged very well and was like having a walk back in time.
Continuing on our sour adventure, Dirk is kind enough to share the last bottle of 1979 Cantillon Framboise. To say this was a treat, does not give justice to this beer. After 28 years in Dirk’s cellar, the label had disintegrated; only the location known by the Cellar Keep would be able identify this beer. After the cork was removed, we passed it around, as if it was a rare wine. The cork was dark with mold, damp after being on its side for so many years and surprised that it hadn’t deteriorated further. As the aged liquid filled our glasses, bottle kept at the perfect angle, preventing any of the yeast to enter the glass, the light red huge from raspberries over 29 years old were open to the environment. The small delicate bubbles showed their signs of life as the nectar was lifted to our lips. The fragrance of the tart berries still held true, with a sour flavor that had rounded over the years, mixing the Brettanomyces, Pediococcus and Lactobacillus all together, not identifiable as separate bacteria, but as a sour unlike any I have ever had the honor to try. “Wow,” was all we could say at the table. This was the an unbelievable beer, aged so perfectly, that conversations of what we were doing between 1976 and 1979, as this beer was being created echoed over the table…
At this point, we not only had trust and respect for Dirks knowledge, but trusted him with our next beer selection. He smiled with a wicked grin and disappeared for several minutes, going deep in the cellar, returning with two very special bottles for our last beer of the evening. Leen and Dirk grab several Oerbier glasses and began pouring one of the first beers to come out of De Dolle Brouwer. This bottled beer from 1980, poured a dark brown, with just a hint of carbonation. The nose was unreal; plum candy, tart cherry, almond, toffee, raisin with a vinous finish. The flavors of this brew blew my mind. Perfectly balanced sweet and tart, more like a port, but not as viscous, hints of oak, vanilla, plums, prunes, dark fruits, currents, with a toffee sweetness, touches of malt, all working off each other, yet playing nicely.
As we sipped this nectar, Dirk began showing us some of his Beer Porn. Bottles of Chimay starting at 1983, then ’82 and a rusty ’81 Grand Reserve, all full bottles, all aged under Dirks supervision, show is seriousness of his cellar. He laughs as he whips out a green glass bottle of Chimay, “I’ve never seen a green bottle out of Chimay. I’ve sold hundreds of thousands of bottles of Chimay, but never a green bottle, always brown,” Dirk comments.
1981 Chimay Blue, still full of wonderful beer
If you look closely, beyond the tap specials, is the original Pannepot painting from
De Struise. Carlo gave it to Dirk as gift.
We leave Dirk a few beers from the States, a 21st Amendment IPA in a can, two cases of Hair of the Dog beers from Alan Sprints and a freshly bottled right off the keg Russian River Pilney the Elder. Thanks Dirk for a wonderful evening.
The Kulminator is located near the old part of town in the beautiful coastal city of Antwerp, Vleminckveld 32.
