Repeating an experiment, I realized last summer's beer was actually just off. This Belle Gueule Rousse was pretty fine with a wood oven pizza, the malty richness cut by the char of the crust. I didn't try it with all 75 varieties offered by Pizza Il Focolaio but I expect it would find it goes pretty well with pretty much all of them. BAers find it just good enough but still tend to note the swell nuttiness that sets this apart from the sort of caramel blob that most ambers end up ending up as.

One sort of subtle that I quite happy to come across from time to time. Sometimes we hear that a beer like this is good because you can talk past it in company, because it doesn't demand the attention a hop bomb or a bourbon booze fest or one adulterated by minute measures of three types of celeriac would. But I have never known company around the table improved by a loudmouth. Only thing that might make this better is if it were knocked back from 5.2% to 4.2% and it was served in a pint glass instead of one fit for a bistro. But then it would not fit the bistro, would it.