Trippel A
Mikkeller ApS

 

Best before November 24th, 2019.

Pours a deep gold, hazy (2nd pour) floaties abound. Not attractive to most but doesn't bother me much.

The smell is of sweet spices and fruit; coriander, some cloves, bananas, candi
sugar, yeasty. I can't say I get any hop bitterness.

Candi sugary sweet, coriander, very light cloves, bananas, no discernible bitterness to my palate.

Medium body, fairly gentle carbonation.

Good but not exactly the classic Tripel. I am thinking of Chimay Blanche when I say that.

 

 

 

this is a great beer, a bit of an oddity, but a really delightful brew. its sort of a triple, but more of a wit hybrid than anything else, wheat based, strong, sweet, and spiced liberally. it must be fairly old now, as this is pre keith shore artwork on the label, which has to take us back at least three or four years. there might be a little oxidation in it, but its held up very well. heady and bubbly, hazy brassy looking beer, with a big red apple aroma, belgian yeast, coriander seed, toasty and warm, some candy sugar type sweetness, and a crazy herbal character that may well be attributable to hops! unique in the style, especially in an older beer, but here it is. subtle lemongrass in the flavor, citrus peel, coriander, stale wheat malt, warming alcohol, and some almost menthol or tea-like element, maybe a product of the yeast, which has a peppery intensity about it, very mature and seemingly still rocking here. cool depth of flavor in a style fusion like this, perhaps a bit exposed on the alcohol and still a little too sweet for high volume consumption, but it has a decidedly holiday feel to it, and is a fun little mikkeller relic to share. i still get excited every single time i have a mikkeller beer i have never had before, keeps me on my toes! awesome carbonation here, this could almost be mistaken for being refreshing...

330ml bottle - so this appears to be a cross between a Tripel, and a Witbier, according to the list of ingredients.

This beer pours a hazy, medium apricot amber colour, with an aggressively teeming tower of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat creamy off-white head, which leaves some decent spooky forest webbed lace around the glass as it lazily recedes.

It smells of semi-sweet, bready and doughy caramel malt, besotted orange zest, fairly phenolic yeast, edgy coriander and black pepper spice, candy sugar, and further metallic boozy notes. The taste is rather sweet caramel/toffee malt, orange cream, a now more well-behaved yeastiness, muddled earthy spice (though some anise comes out to play as things warm), free-range simple syrup, and an indistinct bitterness, one borne of perfumed florals, more than anything.

The carbonation is fairly understated in its quotidian frothiness, the body a solid heavyweight for the style, and mostly smooth, maybe a hint of spice and alcohol taking the sheen off of things here. It finishes still pretty sweet, the malt and sucrose not into taking breathers, it would seem.

Overall, this is an enjoyable enough, if simply-rendered version of the blended style - the basically successful integration of the 18-proof wowee sauce making this kind of easy to drink, if you don't think too hard, which would indeed be the state of things if you chose to pound this one back.