Bayou Teche Joie á Tous

Christmas is officially over, but my lights are still up so I can still post about Christmas beers. If the rain stops here, I’ll swap the Christmas lights out for the Mardi Gras lights. A weird thing I do is call all strands of lights Christmas lights, regardless of holiday, or even if they’re plain white ones that are up year-round on a patio or something. I’ll even call them things like “Mardi Gras Christmas lights” or “Halloween Christmas lights” as if “Christmas lights” are their actual name. Go figure, coming from a guy who lives in a part of the world that calls every soft drink “Coke” even if it’s Sprite or root beer.

Speaking of beer (segue!), Bayou Teche has been killing it lately. One of their more interesting beers was their Bière Joie, a Belgian beer brewed with Louisiana’s cajun coffee Mello Joy. When you think coffee beers, you think stouts and porters — darker, opaque beers. Bière Joie wasn’t dark or opaque — it was a golden, hazy beer with coffee notes. It was delicious.

Well, Bayou Teche stepped it up for the holidays with their Belgian dubbel, Joie á Tous (Joy to All). Also brewed with Mello Joy coffee, Joie á Tous pours an amber color, a few shades darker than the Bière Joie. Up on top of that amber beer sat a small, white head. Nothing like Santa’s beard, but it was there and stayed a while.

It has a great coffee aroma. You can smell the grounds. It has a very noticeable coffee flavor in the front, but mellows (Mellos?) out to a great overall flavor and finishes with an almost tart flavor and bit more coffee.

It has a very light body and I could leisurely drink it all night as a result. It’s not an overly intense coffee flavor, but it’s definitely there. It’d be good for people that aren’t too big on coffee in their beer.

A few weeks later I had this on tap at Avenue Pub. I enjoyed it just as much as in the bottle, if not more so. The difference wasn’t vast, but it felt more… airy. I assume that’s because a) it was properly pressurized in the Pub’s lines, 2) Avenue Pub bartenders always pour a beer far better than I ever could, and d) it was in the proper glass.

I found this at Stein’s Market, but I’ve seen it in Rouse’s on Carrollton as well. I can’t promise you’ll still find it in stores, but it’s worth searching for.