Gouden Carolus ‘Hopsinjoor’

Gouden Carolus 'Hopsinjoor'
Gouden Carolus 'Hopsinjoor'

An evening of pub-hopping and beer-having had made Kirsten and I rather peckish, so we backtracked a little up Hood Street to a place called Gothenburg, which had caught our eye on our way to House. She picked the food, and I took about ten times as long to pick the beers.

I had missed this ‘Hopsinjoor’ when we had a few bottles at work — we presumably got them from the same place the restaurant did; local (to Hamilton, that is) beer importers Beer Store — so leapt at the chance to have one. Kirsten herself had never had the Westmalle Tripel, and I thought both would go well with the prawns, calamari and anchovy pizza we’d ordered. And go well they did, indeed. I feel I deserve some Beer Matching points for that, but really the bulk of the credit goes to the restaurant for their insanely yumtastic food, and to these rather clever breweries.

The ‘Hopsinjoor’, as the name begins to give away, is a hoppier-than-usual Belgian ale, which has considerable zing thereby added to the nicely dry, complex goodness that is a well-made pale golden strong ale of its type. Trading a few sips for a side-by-side comparison, the extra angles of flavour become really apparent.

Gouden Carolus 'Hopsinjoor'
Diary II entry #31, Gouden Carolus 'Hopsinjoor'

Verbatim: Gouden Carolus ‘Hopsinjoor’ 27/10/10 330ml 8% $14 @ Gothenburg, Hamilton. This place for dinner, and drinks took longer to decide on; I’m guessing that Beer Store are largely to credit for the impressive, Belgian-stuffed beer list. We had this one at work a while ago, but I missed out. It’s a cloudy, pale straw. Big, yeasty nose; not a lot of hops present until you get to the face. There, they give a nice zingy bitterness that is welcome + unusual. Kirsten had the Westmalle Tripel and both have gone ludicrously well with the insanely tasty prawns, calamari + anchovy pizza we went for. Civilised.

2 thoughts on “Gouden Carolus ‘Hopsinjoor’”

  1. Impressed they have the beautiful Westmalle glasses, one of my favourites (and yours too I believe). Even more impressed at your beer photography ability; shown here by hiding away that out-of-place Chimay logo that I know is on your glass…

  2. Ha! Guilty as charged; well spotted. That was equal parts me being squiffy about having mis-matched glasses in the shot and not wanting to directly ‘out’ them as serving things mis-matched, unless any me-ishly-squiffy people thought less of them for such. It really was a bloody lovely little place. Maybe I should just send them some nice multiply-usable blank goblets.

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