I am only tangentially familiar with St. Bernardus. I've had the abt 12, I know there was once some type of tie in to Westvleteren. And I know they're not recognized as a Trappist ale anymore, and there's some story about that. Notice I've attached a link to all of that stuff so that you can really color inside the lines. I've written a bunch of newsletters for this beer exchange while checking out dozens upon dozens of websites, and this could easily be the biggest internet rabbit hole anyone could ever have the experience of jumping down.
So what did we find out after we opened these...
(Editors Note: St Bernardus has confirmed that Best By Bottle Dates are 4 years after bottling. So note that the US bottle was 5 months old, basically as fresh as it gets, and the France bottle was a little over a year old.)
