#80 – Biere du Corsaire

#80 - Biere du Corsaire

Size: 330 ml

ABV: 9.4 %

Pirates (#15), buccaneers (#27), and now corsairs. It would appear it truly is cool to be a seadog in Belgium. Corsairs were more on a par with buccaneers than they were with pirates, in that their acts of piracy were also sanctioned by a letter of Marque. It is from this that the name derives. The King of France during the middle ages sought to weaken his enemies in the foreign trade routes, and thus would legalise the acts of piracy through a “Lettre de Course” – the same thing as a Lettre de Marque. ‘La course’ tended to be a euphemism at the time for chasing down foreign merchant shipping, and it is from this word that the term Corsaire was derived.

The line between pirate and corsair is a fine one, with the Letter de Course giving the benefactor the right to only attack state enemies. Any raids upon friendly or neutral parties would render the crew pirates, and thus almost certainly hangable upon capture. This method of foreign warfare worked brilliantly for the French king, who severely dented the progress and wealth of the Spanish and English at the time, particularly in the Caribbean. In fact, the use of Corsairs also unwittingly had a positive effect on the engineering of boats during this golden age. As the Spanish and English sought to avoid capture from the increasing number of mercenaries, so did their efforts to improve the technology, speed and manoeuvrability of their fleet. Corsairs have been credited with the introduction of the topsail and the gaff rig, and eventually for the designs that led to the Genovese and Bermuda sails.

The golden days of the Corsair had to come to an end, and this was precipitated in 1706 when the Treaty of Utrecht effectively put an end to the Corsair raids in the Caribbean, and although there remained a trend to continue across the world, the change in the French state in 1815 effectively shut down the practice. It wasn’t until the Congress of Vienna however in 1856 that the use of Corsairs was officially ended.

The beer of course still exists, no doubt a hankering back to the romantic swashbuckling age. It started on the wrong foot with the pour, which looked more like pineapple juice – fair in colour and littered with soupy strands of something! It redeemed itself on the palate though, with strong and very fruity overtones. It would have had to have been strong to keep on long journeys overseas, and in the end this effort seemed to have a detrimental effect on the overall experience, which faded from the memory as the beer continued. Like many of Huyghe’s brews outside the Delirium range, this is more a white elephant !