Homemade Swiss cooler at the Hotel Edelweiss

My improvised Swiss cooler (window half open for photo purposes).

After arriving at the Hotel Edelweiss in Wengen, Switzerland, we were cold, wet and hungry.  So we took the beer out of our luggage and wanted to chill it.  But alas -- no fridge in this quaint little hotel/ski-chalet.

I put on my thinking cap and opened the window to find a large windowsill outside.  I set all our beers on the ledge.  First thing I do in any hotel is try to open the window.  I'm not sure why -- but I do.  Every time.  I realized there were functional outdoor shutters, so I pulled the outdoor shutter closed and locked it to prevent any random winds from coming along and blowing my beer off the ledge.  I left the other shutter open to let the cool air circulate in the space.  Don't worry -- I checked below to make sure that should some strange event come along that would cause my beer to fall -- I wouldn't injure anyone sitting around eating their schnitzel dinner.  It was an alley below.  So we shut the window and headed off to dinner in the cold.

When we arrived back at our hotel after dinner, we popped this open and dug out all our maps to plan our adventures the next day.  We were fighting against a few factors: 1) the TSA had stolen or misplaced one of my running shoes when I left Phoenix and 2) it was cold and snowing on the mountain.  We did not expect to deal with either of these factors when we planned to go to Switzerland to go mountain biking and hiking.

So although the weather was crap, the beer was perfect.  Boozy and sweet.  A surprisingly good brew!

La Goudale (7.25% ABV)
Les Brasseurs De Gayant
Douai, France

About the brewery:  as of the date of my research, the Les Brasseurs de Gayant Brewery is the second largest independent brewery in France. The brewery was originally founded in 1919 in the Norde-Pas-de-Calais region of France that borders Belgium. Despite being one of the largest independent breweries in France, they specialize in producing high quality small batches of "biere de garde" style of beers.

About the beer / beer name:  in the fourteenth century, the good beers were called Goudale, Goudalle or Good Ale. A merchant called the Goudalier sold each of the "Good Ales" for 2 deniers a pot.  This particular La Goudale was crowned the "World's Best Biere de Garde" at the 2008 World Beer Awards.

As we headed out the next morning, we finally got to see some beautiful blue skies and the tip tops of the Alps.  Mother Nature teased us with just a few short hours of sunshine to soak in the beauty of the Alps.  And then it started to snow...