Beer and Food Review: Weyerbacher's Merry Monks

As promised. Last night (Saturday) I made a garlic shrimp pizza and wanted to pair it with a beer. I had a fairly definite idea of what I wanted the pizza to be like:

• White pizza, with a mixture of mozzarella and gruyere cheese;
• Shrimp cooked in garlic;
• Sliced garlic arranged over the pizza.

I had to make some concessions to ingredients we already had (some pepperoni that we had) and children. Our kids are pretty good eaters, but we worried that the sliced garlic might be too "spicy" for them. In the end I ended up mincing the garlic. (No complaints from the kids, by the way). I used the pepperoni on half the pizza. Overall it came out quite good. A picture is on the right.

The beer pairing I wasn't so sure about. I just wasn't sure what I wanted. In the end I ended up visiting my local liquor store which fortunately has a tremendous selection of craft beers. I knew I didn't want an IPA--the hops would have overpowered the shrimp and the gruyere. Likewise a weizen beer. My choices (in my mind at least) were a Belgian blond ale or a lager. I decided to go Belgian.

Enter Weyerbacher's Merry Monk Traditional Belgian Golden Ale. I've had Weyerbacher brews before and have always been impressed. I've had an opportunity to check out Beer Advocate: it rates a B on that site. I would agree. BA classifies it as a tripel rather than a Belgian golden ale--IMO, the difference between those styles (as defined in the BJCP style guide) are so minor I wonder that they are distinct styles. It is 9.3% alcohol by volume (ABV), so it isn't a light beer by any means.

My first impression upon popping the cap were that typical spiciness of Belgian yeasts, with some floral notes. Once I began pouring it, these became even more pronounced. The color is very pale yellow with a bright, dense white head with fine bubbles. It dissipated rather quickly though. As you can tell, I didn't have a goblet handy so used some pilsner-like glasses that I've had for years. I will attest that the serving temperature was correct (prob around 45 degrees).

The spiciness was apparent right away--and I knew that I had a tripel or golden ale. I disagree with at least one of the BA reviewers who said that it had a heavy maltiness--not so to my palate. There was also very little hop presence. (Note that according to the BJCP style guide, this is perfectly style appropiate.) It might have just been this bottle, but it didn't seem highly carbonated. Looking at this glass, you would think that it would have been very effervescent, but it didn't really seem that way. Or it could have been all the cheese and garlic in the pizza that made it seem less so.

Over all, I enjoyed my Merry Monk, although I probably won't pair it with a garlic, shrimp, and gruyere pizza again. The estery spiciness didn't really complement the pizza, at least to me. I should have gone with something a bit more delicate, like a wit beer.