Abbaye De Valmagne Ambree
Brasserie d'Oc

Copenhagen 13/4 2018. 75 cl bottle from Vinbørsen, Nordre Frihavnsgade, Kbh Ø. Serious looking black label with a little pictogram of a well and the name of the beer. Pretty no nonsense.

Pours hazy opaque brown with a very big off-white head. Settles as a 0,5 cm thick layer of foam. Moderate lacing.

Aroma is sweet and intensely roasted. Caramel, loads of brown sugar, roasted malts, hints of licorice. Base of humid basement odor.

Strong prickly carbonation. Thin, watery texture. A little sticky.

Flavor is rather sweet. Only rudimentary bitterness. Aftertaste is sweet and a tad sugary. But not cloying - probably due to the hard carbonation.

Very sweet yet quite light Dubbel. Pretty simple - and i miss a little complexity and ABV. But easily drinkable - and always interesting to be able to drink a Dubbel without running into a headache when I wake up.

Pours a dark ashy russet color with a middling cocoa head. Aromas of copper and molasses, maple syrup, bread crusts, and cheap chocolate. Sort of schwartzbier-ish in a way. This beer is kinda bizarre; not bizarre like Dogfish Head’s upcoming insect cocoon-aged series, but just rather unexpected. Despite hailing from France, this beer is clearly trying to emulate a Belgian style. The label features a monastic title and imagery, there’s a swath of yeast at the bottom of the bottle, and the commercial description mentions "triple fermentation." But the beer tastes like wort, a grain soup bathed in maple syrup and cola, betraying the basic Belgian principle of attenuation. As if they forgot to do any of the three fermentations boasted. The finish is short, but the body is so sweet, reminding me of certain Sam Adams styles. Pour this beer over pancakes or grapefruit. The empty bottle smells like cheap wafer chocolate. I’m THIS CLOSE to believing that they dumped candi sugar into the bottle instead of fresh yeast.