La Rulles Brune

This one came recommended from someone or other. It has a lovely colour on the pour. But then a urine smell hits you like you’re walking through Gare du Midi on a Saturday night. Not encouraging.

Needing to find an inner strength to bring this one to my lips, I remind myself that sometimes the stinkiest sport-sock of a cheese tastes absolutely lovely once it gets past the nose and on to the tongue. Sadly, this is not the case with this beer. Which is to say, it tastes like piss too.

The 40b40 challenge has experienced many a fine beer and many a lacklustre one, but this is the only beer that will go right down the sink.

Michael Jackson wrote that La Rulles Brune is “full in texture and flavour; well balanced, with a coffeeish note”. Did I get a bad bottle? Was he drinking a different beer? Did he confuse an espresso maker and a urinal?

UPDATE, December 2010: It was surely a bad bottle. Recently tried La Rulles Cuvée Meilleurs Voeux, and it was excellent.