Delirium Tremens
By John & Dad on November 14, 2011 @ 6 PM (3 Comments)
Literally, Delirium Tremens is a severe form of alcohol withdrawal that involves sudden and severe mental and nervous system changes. It’s actually Latin for “shaking frenzy” and the main symptoms are confusion, diarrhea, insomnia, nightmares, disorientation, agitation, visual hallucinations, and extremely intense feelings of impending doom or imminent death.
That said, Delirium Tremens is not just a vicious medical condition, it’s also an incredibly awesome name for a beer. A beer we’re reviewing here today at The BeerFathers. A beer we’re happy to report led to none of those symptoms, though it did lead to us writing a very bad adage.
Delirium Tremens comes from the Brouwerij Huyghe in Belgium, which makes a variety of other beers in the Delirium series including Delirium Nocturnum and Delirium Noel (aka Delirium Christmas), both of which are darker than their brother.
Delirium Tremens weighs in at 8.5% ABV in an 11.2 oz bottle (it also comes in a 750 ml bottle as well). It’s a great looking bottle – speckled white glass with a light blue foil over the cap and neck and little pink elephants all over the bottle (seeing pink elephants is a euphemism for a drunken hallucination cause by, you guessed it, Delirium Tremens). You can’t miss it on the shelf.
For this review dad and I used a snifter glass and got a starting beer temperature of 55.2 F. Opening the bottle got us a foaming cascade of beer so we quickly got our initial pour into our glass resulting in a large 2″ frothy white head that left no lacing as it dissipated quickly. The color is a hazy straw yellow and there is a lively amount of carbonation in the beer. There’s a good bit of flotsam and jetsam in the beer as well – enough sediment actually that it reminds us of the Brasserie Des Rocs that went a little overboard in that department. We’re more okay with it now than we were then though.
For our aromas we got biscuit, honey, citrus (both lemon and orange), yeast, light bubble gum, coriander, light ginger, peach, pear, light pepper, light apricot, spices and a hint of white wine. It smells a lot like a Duvel and that’s not a bad thing at all.
For our initial flavors we got a moderate to heavy sweet followed in the finish by a heavy sweet, very light bitter and light tart. For our tastes we stayed pretty true to the smells – biscuit, honey, citrus (lemon and orange), yeast, light alcohol, ginger, peach, pear, light pepper, light apricot, spices and a light white wine. There’s lots of light fruits in this bad boy with lots of nice light notes combined with a good heavy sweetness. It’s tremendous.
The finish length is average, the mouthfeel is creamy, the tongue hit is in the very back and there’s not much body lacing to speak of. On our patented malt to hop scale it comes in 3 clicks to the left of balanced on the malty side. Very sweet indeed.
For our bottom line notes we got a yes to drinkable, repeatable, balance, harmony, memorable and buy again. The only no was to wow factor. Repeatable is a questionable yes too – nothing taste-wise would keep us from repeating it, but the alcohol content might.
Do we recommend it? An emphatic, drunken, falling down yes. It’s perfect as it warms and a very enjoyable beer experience. We’d like to say there were no reportable symptoms of the alcohol but we were feeling pretty good after this one, perhaps because we consumed it rather quickly due to the extremely pleasant taste. That said the alcohol did yield one side effect – a little adage parody we wrote: Delirium at night, malt lover’s delight. Delirium in the morning, malt lovers take warning.
We apologize for the adage. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
Delirium Tremens Rating: 8 out of 10 (?)
3 Comments (Add Your Comments)
« Mother Earth Weeping Willow Wit
Craft Beer – a Hopumentary »
Nice review. Makes me want to pick one of these up. Definitely on the list for our next visit to Total Wine.
Delirium Tremens is indeed excellent. A definite go-to along with some others of the Belgian ale variety. I agree with your review.
Good review. May just have to try one of these soon.