Delirium Tremens & Nocturnum

In 2008, Belgian ale Delirium Tremens was named ‘Best Beer in the World’ at the World Beer Championships. I think ‘Best Beer Bottle in the World’ would have been a lot more fitting.

Because the bottle is such a beauty I assumed the beer would be of similar stature, however my brother and me were left pondering throughout the time it takes to drink a 330ml bottle how this beer was ever crowned best in the world. I think possibly the bottle and the award sent me the wrong message and I had built myself up for an overwhelmingly good beer, unfortunately this only set me up for a bigger disappointment when I realised that the flavours in this beer were fairly simple; this isn’t a particularly bad characteristic for a beer to have though, and it actually was a really refreshing drink, just not enormously tasty. The flavours that were there I would say were sweet and banana-ry, so if you like a subdued sweet beer, I'd give this a shot.

We also tried a bottle of Delirium Nocturnum, the dark sister of Tremens. This beer offered a much larger range of flavours than the worlds best beer did, but still failed to blow me away like the bottle had seemingly promised. A bit too carbonated for how I usually like dark beers, but the sweet and dark fruity flavours did contrast really nicely.

I understand that the packaging of a beer is completely irrelevant to how it tastes, but I personally think that having a beer is so much more enjoyable when it is served in a properly designed bottle/glass, and regardless of whether it should or shouldn’t, it has an effect on me.

As you can probably tell, I like a good bottle, and Delirium comes in a bloody good bottle. Unfortunately for me, the compliments end there.


2.5/5