Quintessence

I'm really excited about a tasting at Cantillon that Nilam and I are going to in late April. The tasting is called, "Quintessence" and features an afternoon of pairings among various lambics from Cantillon and artisanal cheeses by Jacquy Cange (I don't know his work, but French names and terms like "artisanal" add instant credibility to one's cheese). Cantillon is the greatest lambic maker in the world and run a charming brewery; I'd go just for the flights of lambic but the pairing of cheeses and speculoos (among others) make it too great to pass up.

Though it promises to be an amazing event, I cannot get over one of the hilarious cultural differences here. Namely, though a beer tasting, there is no attempt to make this event even slightly manly. The name of the event would be equally appropriate for a jar of jasmine-flavored aromatic bubblebath.

And as they quote:

The visitors will discover a Cantillon beer with the best daintiness in each of the 8 rooms of the brewery.

Bless their hearts for providing an English translation, but worser men might argue that the words "dainty" and "beer" should never share a sentence, unless that sentence is, "he broke a beer bottle over the dainty dude's head".