Unibroue Chambly Noire

Brewery: Unibroue
Location: Chambly, Quebec
Style: Belgian Dark Ale
Brewery Website
Rating: A-

Today's beer tasting is the Chambly Noire from Quebec's Unibroue. The Chambly Noire is pitch black and opaque with a faint hint of amber. The head is light tan in color and there is notable carbonation and sediment visible in the glass. The nose has notes of butter, wine and toast.

On the palate there is an initial butter note that fades leaving a toasted malt flavor that isn't overly strong despite the deep black color. Yeast is a prominent flavor as well. Cocoa and espresso as well as some champagne notes are present. There are also some cherry and citrus fruit notes in the background. The Chambly Noire is dry, but not bone dry. It has a medium body with some carbonation fizz and a slight coating sensation. The finish has black coffee and buttered toast.

The Unibroue Chambly Noire is a novel concept as Belgian-style beers go. This is essentially a dark witbier, and it works pretty well as such. The Chambly Noire is just dry enough without going too far and the strong butter note on the nose is tamed down to a more balanced level on the palate. What can I say, this is another great showing from Unibroue. If Belgian-style beers are your thing, then the Chambly Noire should be on your "must-try" list.

One other point of note: The Chambly Noire provided an excellent pairing with the Domori Puertofino that we recently reviewed on our sister site The Dark Chocolate Blog.