Abbaye de Vauclair Imperiale

Abbaye de Vauclair

Brewed by Les Brasseurs De Gayant
Style: Bière de Garde
Arques, Pas-de-Calais, France

The Vauclair Abbey was a Cistercian abbey founded in 1134 by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, located in the North Of France. Supported financially by rich families, the abbey quickly prospered and was given several estates and farms, until the French Revolution in 1789, when it was finally demolished and sold as “national property”. Then World War one lead to further damage from artillery fire…..to where today only ruins remain. What remains of the site is an arboretum of apple and pear trees and a medicinal herb garden.

Lidl France, with the help of the Goudale brewery in Arques, who brew the beer, sell the product in their supermarkets. I have had La Goudale Biere, from Les Brasseurs De Gayant (Goudale brewery), their flagship beer in the past and overall found it to be not a bad beer at all. As for the Abbaye de Vauclair range, I tried their fruit beer, Abbaye de Vauclair Rubis, which I enjoyed a lot, easy to relax with, especially on a hot day.

Review: 75cl bottle of Abbaye de Vauclair Imperiale: 7.5% vol.

Lidl France, and for the big bottle all less than two Euros!

Coming in a very eye catching jet black bottle, with a pop up opener.

Looks great, very decent white creamy head that lasted, with a good bit of carbonation fizzing around, colour was a lovely golden beer that looked very appetizing. Top marks on appearance.

The aroma is quite flowery, smelling like a nice perfume, lovely on the nose, nice and soft smelling rose petals! Light aroma, fruity as well, all nice smells.

A tough one to drink, very strong in the hop taste, very, very bitter and tastes all a bit raw and rough, a bit too earthy.

All instant, straight in the taste, no hanging around just punches you in the tastebuds with the strong hops, no rest from it.

Did settle down a bit after a while, once I got half way down the bottle, sweet and getting some malts, caramel and fruits, but still does not improve much in the overall taste.

All about the hops here and the overkill, didn’t taste much else. Didn’t feel like a 7.5% vol. beer either.

Didn’t enjoy it. Not nice………….