. Favourite Beer of the Week

We went to City Beer Store.


It's a store in the city that sells beer.



They've got hard-to-find beers in bottles and cans, and a few on tap.

It's good, but a bit expensive, and a bit out-of-the-way unless you live in SOMA or you're going to the Triptych restaurant, which you should because they have a nice patio out back, and several vegan things on the menu.

At City Beer I bought a Belgian Tripel IPA called The Bitter Truth.

It's bitter like an IPA and flowery like a Belgian, and not too boozy considering it's 10% abv.

The description on the brewery's website translates from Belgian as "A very firm beer for people with a strong individuality, smoothly nevertheless drinkable."

I'd agree with that.

I liked the look of the stubby bottle, although I've no idea what the picture on the label is supposed to be.

The term Tripel was originally used by brewers from the Low Countries. It referred to the XXX marking on the beer casks.

The Low Countries is what Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were called in the olden days.

In 1946, the Low Countries decided to change their name. They used the first two letters from each of the words Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg to make the new word Benelux, which sounds like a washing machine.

The Bitter Truth is also the name of a famous 90 minute lecture by this man. It's about how sugar is evil and poisonous and will make you fat and unwell.

The Belgians traditionally add candi sugar to their tripels. Without it the beer would be weak, thick and flavorless.

But does the sugar in beer make you fat? Or is it the estrogen in the hops? Or is it all the sitting down you do in the pub? Or is it all the fatty food you eat when you leave the pub?

Well, yes.

But beer also reduces your risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, dementia, osteoporosis, and kidney stones. It's fat free, aids restful sleep, and it's full of flavonoids that protect the body from disease.

Unfortunately, not even tasty Belgian beer can protect my body from disease. The day after I drank my tripel IPA I caught a cold.

That's the bitter truth.

In next week's attempt to improve my health we will be visiting the Healthy Spirits beer store in the Castro.

Apparently it's just like City Beer Store, except Healthy Spirits can't pour you a beer because they're less than a block away from an elementary school, and elementary school students cannot be trusted within a block of an open beer.