The Monks Are Back!...Rochefort 6

Mmmm....I love me some monk beer. This one had everything that Orval didn't. A deep dark coppery brown color, slightly fruity and musky bread on the nose, a tinge of alcohol and enough carbonation lighten the body a bit.  This one was roasted malt sweet with enough hops to tone it down. All of Rochefort's beers are bottle conditioned so there is a bit of yeast and sediment on the bottom. Where Orval had failed me Rochefort 6 made me want to keep drinking all night.

The "6" is Rochefort Abbey's lowest ABV beer at 7.5% The others being the "8" and "10" at 9.2% and 11.3% respectively. The 6 is only brewed twice a year and is only 1% of their total production so it can be a bit hard to come by.

Through a bit of research I've found some pretty interesting things about the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy which is located near the town of Rochefort from which the beer takes it's name. There are only 15 monks at the Abbey and like the other Trappists they are extremely secretive about their brewing process. One of the more interesting things about Rochefort is that the water used in the beer is drawn from a well inside the abbey's walls so the entire process is contained within the cloisters. It might sound ridiculous but I love drinking Trappist beer in part because of the history. That question of which of the 15 monks who live and breathe this ale poured my beer into the bottle for the final fermentation? So next time you are drinking Bud Light, ask yourself the question, "Which completely automated machine squirted my homogeneously created, artificially carbonated, wizz water into my bottle"?