Augustijn Blonde

Review Date 7/17/2021 By John Staradumsky

  Style: Belgian Blonde   Brewery: Van Steenberge   Country: Belgium   State: N/A   $ Per OZ: $.20 (B)   ABV: 7%

Augustijn Blonde: hadn’t I had that before? I was quite sure I had, and my handy dandy beer tracking spreadsheet confirmed my suspicions. Still, I had never opined on the beer (read: took tasting notes), so I picked up a bottle for that very purpose.

Augustijn Blonde comes in attractive, stubby bottles and is brewed by the Van Steenberge brewery. This is one of three beers in the Augustijn line, the other two being a dark and a Grand Cru. Van Steenberge has a lot to say about this beer and its history on their website, so we will give them the microphone for a bit:

The Augustinian monks have been brewing Augustijn since 1295 at their monastery in Ghent. In the Middle Ages, many priests and monks brewed and marketed their own beer. As the water was often contaminated, it was safer to drink beer because the water was boiled during the brewing process.

When the Augustinians started looking for a new brewing partner in 1987, Jozef Van Steenberge had already been experimenting a lot with top fermenting beers. Jozef won the competition organised by the Augustinians. This meant that the brewery gained access to the recipe of this historic monastery beer and the expertise of recipe administrator Janus Jeremanus. Janus was a consultant for the Van Steenberge Brewery for more than 25 years and introduced the original Augustinian yeast strains that we still use today.

The historic yeast strains give the beer its mild, smooth, but very rich flavour. The Van Steenberge brewery uses these strains as the basis of Augustijn and many of its other beers. A beer for any occasion that excels when is savoured in a relaxed atmosphere. If you drink Augustijn when it is young, you get to enjoy its fruity, hoppy flavour. If you let the monastery beer mature, you are transported back into its story of flavour. You can taste the rich history in each glass.

That is a lot of quotes text, I know, but the context of this beer is important to understand, especially as relates to the unique yeast strain used here. Yeast contributes more to Belgian and Belgian style ales than it does for almost any other style. Here, age is also important, though my bottle features no discernible date coding. I do see the characters 06ES 14:31, but that means nothing to me.

Augustijn Blonde is not sold here in Georgia; at least I have not seen it. I got a bottle from Craftchack.com for just $2.25, a good deal that. The beer has an alcohol content of 7% by volume. If you are wondering why I decanted this beer into a Polish glass (I have plenty of Belgian glasses don;t you know), I just scored this lovely Zywiec glass for 99 cents at Goodwill and was dying to try it out. So now you know.

Augustijn Blonde pours to a ruddy blonde color with a thick fluffy white head and a nose of banana and rock candy. Taking a sip, the beer is medium in body with grainy, almost pasty oat like notes. It’s gently vinous with fruity grape notes, lots of yeasty funk and a dry refreshing finish.

This is a very nice beer indeed, one I wish I could find more often. Based on the fruit and yeasty fun character I would say my bottle is not that old at all. My spreadsheet tells me that I have never tried Augustijn Cark or Grand Cru. If you’ll excuse me, I think I shall be off to find some.