Mike Duggan #10 Belgian Tripel
Duggan's Brewery

On tap at Duggan's Brewery. It pours a golden orange colour with thin white head, but good retention and ok lacing. It smells quite sweet compared to other tripels, with some fruitiness. Taste has a bit of alcohol apparent, to go with the sweetness and Belgian yeast. Nice carbonation level. Only hamper on drinkability is that the sweetness is too much for me. I can finish my half pint of this easy enough, but I never really want a 2nd one until other day.

Thankfully not as sweet as the Mill Street tripel, but still, what is with Toronto breweries and making tripels really sweet?

On-tap at Duggan's Brewery, in Toronto.

A dead-ringer for honey, this tripel is lucid golden with only a brittle iciness to distort its pristine clarity. A tiny speckle of glitter refracts light like a polished amulet. Although my first sample lacked the necessary creamy, long-lasting head essential to the style, subsequent pours generated more acceptable levels of the foamy white stuff.

Duggan's #10 isn't sheepish about its strength (which, by the way, is only a fraction shy of the number in its namesake). Although its barrage of clove, banana and bubble-gum sort of take it the way of the German weissbier, in the end it does arrive at the level of complexity expected of a Tripel. Even more so once you note the pepper and withered fruits.

There's no mistaking that this is a North American rendering and not an authentic Belgian offering. And there's no shame in that - very few brewers on this continent have succeeded in replicating this peculiar, distinctive style that their Walloon and Flemish counterparts seem to have perfected long ago. Actually, Duggan comes closer than many.

But still, it lacks the substantial spicing, it doesn't have the subtle golden fruity nuances and it certainly can't hide its alcohol like the Belgians (which, for the record, are like pathological conmen when it comes to concealing booze). This tastes majorly of bubblegum and wild honey, with pale malt and sugar (and alcohol) lingering.

But if you were to list both the good and the bad about this beer, you'd find the 'good' column is overwhelmingly stacked. Duggan's Tripel may not be on par with Trappist monk's but it does have a pharmacy load of phenolic compounds, a sample swatch of some pretty decent flavours and more drinkability than the alcohol content would seemingly intend.

On tap at the brewpub.

Pours a hazy golden yellow, very thick white head forms, settles to a solid ring, drops a lot of lace on the glass, I would prefer this clearer.

Smell is different, quite fruity, some sugary sweetness, orange peel, banana, lightly spicy, some alcohol, quite estery, slightly yeasty, a little weird for a triple.

Taste is similar, lots of banana/weiss character, esters, alcohol, spice, orange and assorted fruit, biscuity malt, some sugar, sweet finish.

Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied with medium carbonation, some warmth going down. Nice beer - yes, but unlike how I envision a triple.

Re-review: Far fruitier on a later try, and I feel the recipe is still evolving. This glass is hyper fruity, with huge berry and banana notes mixing in with clove. Long, spicy aftertaste fixes my initial complaint. A blind taste test would say this is a weizenbock. To style? I don't know. Good beer? Yes.

Initial review: Pours a hazy yellow with a good two fingers of foamy white head that showed decent retention and laid down some nice lace. Good balance between grainy and fruity in the aroma, with a bit of alcohol in the tail. In my tastings of tripels they seem to fall into two groups: grainy with more pronounced alcohol or fruitier with notes of honey. This one is one of the few that actually seems to straddle both categories, and there's a nice balance to it. However, the cleanness and transitory nature of the aftertaste makes the beer a distant memory soon after its sipped. Alcohol is present, but not too prominent in spite of its weight. Carbonation and mouthfeel is where it should be for the style, though perhaps a little less aggressive than most (which is fine by me).

On tap at the brewpub. Peachy coloured body, with abundant white head. Initially aroma of yeast, even a tad funky, which settles into fruity smell. Lots of fresh lace is in the glass as I drink it. On balance average mouthfeel, a little less than I expect from the style, and the carbonation is apparent, though not the alcohol. A bit drying.