I think I'm going through a beer phase

I've never been much of a beer drinker, I like it sometimes but generally, it's too filling and too carbonated and the taste gets overwhelming to me. However, lately I've been wanting to try different beers and I've been enjoying them and I'd like to keep track of them. I should really do that with wine too and I started doing it with cheese a few years ago and never followed through. The story of my life!

Anyway, I think it started this winter when I went home for Christmas and had something brewed by Goose Island in Illinois. It was dark and coppery, with caramel and coffee undertones and I still haven't gotten it out of my mind. Goose Island doesn't distribute in Louisiana but I heard that they were bought up by Budweiser. This initially made me sad until someone told me that it won't change anything except they will have better distribution. Fingers crossed for Louisiana!

Yesterday I got a bottle of Saison Dupont, which is from Belgium. It had a nice, blond color although on first sniff, it smelled like Heineken to my unrefined nose and Heineken smells like funky skunk. But it tasted really crisp and refreshing, I even felt like there was some banana lingering. I did not much care for the aftertaste, which I am too beer-ignorant to place. Hops? Malt? Not sure. I did a little sleuthing to see if someone else could more eloquently describe it and I found a lot of very amusing descriptions like;

"Nose is a very dense earth, soil, it feels like fresh tilled dirt. Mild chlorophyll and resin, with a big giant lemon zest."

"Hazy straw yellow with 2-3 finger stark white tightly-bubbled, frothy head with good retention with numerous blobs of lacing."

These guys clearly drink more beer than I do and for the record, I don't really know if I could place the taste of resin. I sipped mine some Havarti cheese with caraway seeds and I thought the combination was mighty fine.

Be aware that the alcohol content is somewhat higher than an average beer, which I think is usually about 5%. The Saison Dupont I think is about 6.5%. That coupled with the fact that one of them costs almost $5, makes it a perfect beer to sip on leisurely and then call it quits.