The people who tried it said it was quite good. I’ve had Chimay and Orval, but never the others. Of course I still dream of some day going to Belgium with the express purpose of travelling from brewery to brewery. A fellah can dream, can’t he?
You want some company on that trip?
Well, I don’t speak much French, but I’ve always said it “Sant Bernardoo” (at http://www.belgianstyle.com there’s a pronunciation guide to a lot of familiar Belgian names, in both Flemish and French, but St. Bernardus isn’t there).
As for Unibroue, I’ve always loved their beers (well, since I started drinking them anyway…didn’t come out of the womb shouting “Fin du Monde!!” :D). The base 4 are as nice a collection of Belgian-influenced beers as you can find (plus at distributors they sell for $40 a case!!!), most of their small specials like Raftman (smoked beer) and Blanche de Chambly (which I just thought of, but belongs in the wit discussion…especially since you can buy 5L keg cans!!), and their 750 mL seasonals (U10/11, La Terrible, Edition 2004, and hopefully Edition 2005) are out of this world!!!
Sure, do you speak some French? It could come in handy. I’ve been to the Abbey at Maredsous before, twice actually, and the food there goes very well with the beer. They make bread, cheese and sausage, and you can have a nice little lunch outside*. I always assumed the monk’s made all of these, but now I’m not positive (based on previous posts here).
Maybe we can add some side trips for mussels, frites, waffles and chocolates?
*It’s Belgium, so it’s probably raining most of the time. Then you eat inside.
Un petit peu. (Very little), but I still remember most of the pronunciation rules for French, so the St. Bernardus would have a very clipped n on the St. part, the r’s in Bernardus would be choked, and the ‘dus’ is ‘du’ because ending consonants are not pronoucned unless they are C R F or L.
I can ask people how much things cost, order stuff, find the bathroom, get directions, etc. but am not a fluent speaker.