Beer Goggles: De Zomer van ’64, Scheldebrouwerij

Tom de Swart
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Beer Goggles, a small bit of text on a selected beer that I write for my and (hopefully) your entertainment. Maybe this will be weekly, maybe not. We shall see.

Our very first Beer Goggles contestant! Yaaaaay!

Today I am sampling De Zomer van ’64, or ‘The Summer of ’64 for you non-Dutch speaking folk, by De Scheldebrouwerij.

This is the third edition of their ‘Schelde Speciaal’ series. The first one was Zeezuiper with a twist. This is their most succesful beer, the Zeezuiper tripel, but with Citra and Mosaic hops added in the mix. The second one was Oma Corrie, a Belgian strong dark ale with bourbon mixed in and American oak chips added.

Those two were quite interesting, ingredient wise. This third edition is quite enjoyable, but perhaps less exciting. De Zomer van ’64 is a Belgian blond brewed with 6 grains: barley, wheat, oats, rye, buckwheat and corn. They also threw in a bit of honey for some extra kick. The name is a reference to childhood nostalgia of the brewers. On the side of the bottle you can read a nice bit of prose on the name of the beer. They describe memories of two farmboys, anxious to get their father for dinner after a long summer day working on the land. The smell of blossom and harvest fills the air as they do another round on dad’s harvester before they go home. Charming, if a little sappy.

When you sip it first you might think it to be an ordinary Belgian blond, but there is more to this one if you keep sippin’. The mouthfeel is quite thick due to the heightened protein content from the other grains and the honey is buried underneath spicy rye, sweet barley and full wheat. Hop wise there is not much going on. A slight bitterness and some green flavour, but not much in aromatics such as citrus or other fruits. The aftertaste is sweet, grainy, fruity and has some tones of honey. Alcohol is somewhat noticeable, but does not ruin your experience.

All in all this is a very solid blond beer with some nice additions. The mouthfeel is very nice and there is enough going on to keep you busy. It slowly develops and is never boring. The malts do all the talking in here and that is quite impressive. Not exciting, not boring — but just right.

I don’t do ratings for these ones. Untappd has shown me that ratings are a nice indication of how good a beer is, but rarely does a beer fit neatly in a 1–10 scale. Let’s just say this one is a Pass in my book. Give it a go if it sounds appealing: you won’t be disappointed.

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