The Bullock of Beers - Boulevard Nommo Dubbel

I don't usually read other reviews of beers before I write one but I couldn't help it this time. I was holding my bottle an extra day to drink during my fantasy football draft. In the meantime, Drunk Monkey and Flenker each posted their reviews. Since we all got our bottles from the same place and didn't pay for them I could tell they were tiptoeing around saying they didn't love the Nommo. After having many different iterations of the Boulevard Dubbel over the past year that I didn't enjoy, I was ready to write this post comparing it to bad decisions I made in my fantasy football draft last year and how bad decisions result in bad products (and I had a bad fantasy football team last year). But, actually drinking the Nommo Dubbel changed all that.


I was a little scared off because of the tales of anise which I really don't like. Every other version of the Dubbel I had was full of anise flavor and each one was off putting. But, from the very first sip until the last, I never got any off putting anise flavor. It was wonderfully hidden in a complex blend of molasses, malt, clove, banana and cinammon.

Bullock
Later in the evening, long after the football draft was over, Stella put in a movie with Timothy Olyphant. Olyphant is one of my favorite characters, if you're not familiar with him, he was Bullock in "Deadwood" and now plays Raylon on "Justified". He's been in numerous other movies and he's always super interesting. In "Deadwood" and "Justified", he's always just one step away from completely losing it and he always has an intensity that feels dangerous. I've heard Kevin Smith describe Jason Lee as a loaded spring, you can spend a long period of time compressing the spring and then you let it go and it flies forever. When it's Jason Lee it doesn't seem remotely dangerous, when it's Timothy Olyphant it feels really dangerous. The more I thought about it while I watched Olyphant in Stella's chosen chick flick, the more he reminded me of the Nommo.

Nommo Dubbel feels dangerous, just skirting around the power of the star anise used. It's there, I can feel it, but so is the malt and molasses with some clove (which can also be off putting) and banana. It feels like it can spring at any moment and knock you back with either anise or clove. But somehow the Nommo stays compressed and never springs. You feel like you're living dangerously drinking it (and the 8.1% ABV certainly could be dangerous). At the end of the day I felt like Katie Holmes in "Go", after spending the night as a hostage with the potentially dangerous Timothy Olyphant, his charm won out and Holmes has sex with Olyphant on his apartment building's stairs.

The Timothy Olyphant of beers, Boulevard Nommo, comes out on Tuesday morning. It's not a Tom Cruise like blockbuster, it's not dumbed down to be merely entertaining, it's going for truly memorable. I think if you like the stylings of Timothy Olyphant or really love a super flavorful dubbel, you're going to fall in love with Nommo. You should be able to find Nommo pretty easily over the next month, give it a shot, love it or hate it, you're definitely going to find it interesting.

Disclosure: I received a free bottle of Nommo from a source interested in selling more Nommo. This did not affect my review, but you can be the judge of that.

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