Posted by Greg Clow in beer, beverages on September 2, 2008 at 7:44 am

Regular readers of this column will know that it generally features beers that are relatively easy to find, which usually means those that can be purchased at the LCBO or The Beer Store. After all, the point of these reviews - and Taste T.O. in general - is to cover things that are available to food and drink lovers in Toronto, so with an occasional exception, I try to avoid beers that aren't on the shelves or taps in these parts.

Occasionally, though, a less common beer comes my way that is either so unique or so good that I can't resist writing it up even despite its scarcity. Struise Pannepot Grand Reserva, a strong dark ale from Belgium, is a beer that ably fits both criteria.

First, there's the unique nature of the brewery - or rather, the lack of brewery, as De Struise Brouwers ("The Sturdy Brewers") is a collective of four part-time brewers who use space and equipment at Deca Brewery in Woesten-Vleteren, Belgium to create their beers. Despite it essentially being a sideline business with no permanent home, the Struise products have taken the beer geek world by storm since their first bottles were released in 2004. They've been so well-received, in fact, that De Struise was named Best Brewer in the World for 2008 on the online beer rating site RateBeer.

While the Struise team now has a number of different beers in their line-up, the one that remains their flagship brew is Pannepot, the spiced ale that they launched with in 2004. Intended to be a modern interpretation of a brown ale enjoyed by fishermen in the village of De Panne in the early 1900s and named for the "pannepots" or fishing boats that they sailed, Pannepot is rated second only to the renowned Trappist ale Westvleteren Extra 8 in the Belgian Strong Ale category on RateBeer.

In late 2005, the Struise crew decided to start experimenting with barrel ageing, and placed some Pannepot into oak barrels where it remained for 14 months, taking on a rich woody character similar to an oak-aged wine. After releasing a portion in the spring of 2007 as Pannepot Reserva, the remainder was transferred to a second batch of barrels originally used to store calvados, the French apple brandy, where it spent an addition 10 months of ageing.

The final result of this process is Pannepot Grand Reserva, which was released early this year in very limited amounts. And in a stroke of good timing, local import agents Roland + Russell happened to sign De Struise to their portfolio right around this time, which gave them an allotment of this rare and anticipated brew. Their share was small - only 54 cases - and it took some time to arrive and make its way through the LCBO's testing and approval system, but it was finally released at the end of July, and quickly snapped up by a few beer bars and a handful of local beer geeks.

Those who managed to get their hands on a case should be pleased, as it's a beer that lives up to the hype. It pours a deep reddish-brown with a small but persistent tan head, looking like a nice porter or brown ale. Both the aroma and flavour are rich and complex, with notes of dark sugar, oak, raisins, vanilla, anise, calvados and sour cherry, with a mild astringency in the finish.

As you might guess from both the scarcity and the quality of this beer, all of Roland + Russell's allotment was essentially spoken for before it even arrived, so unless you happen to have a friend who scored a case (or did so yourself), the only way to try it is by visiting one of the five bars in the city that got a share: The Academy of Spherical Arts, Volo, beerbistro, Rhino and Smokeless Joe. It won't be a cheap drink (at least one location has the 330 ml bottles priced at close to 20 bucks), but considering that you'll be sampling one of the most unique beers on the planet, I'd say that it's worth the splurge.