Mike Duggan Trappist Ale ("Trappist #10")
Duggan's Brewery

300ml pour at Volo into a tulip. Duggan's adding to the confusion by calling this #10 Trappist, but we'll see if that sticks before making any changes...

Rich orange body with a large off-white head that showed good retention and lace, certainly looking the part of a trappist beer, even though its brewed by a fella named Mike 4,000 miles from Belgium. Nose is great, mixing candy sugar, tropical fruit, bread, spicy yeast and light roasted malts. Nicely layered.

Yeah, Duggan's hit it on the head with this one. There's quite a lot going on in the flavour - at times I get tropical fruit, at others sweet bread, then a kick of spicy yeast and some chocolate. In fact, the chocolate becomes more dominant as the beer warms and mixes nicely with some cinnamon and clove in the spicing. Medium mouthfeel is good but could probably benefit from a bigger and softer carbonation, but is decent as it stands.

A fine offering and a decent stab at a Belgian dubbel. I could drink this all night!

Brilliant, 2 good sized samples from Roberto at the brewpub. Orangey colour with big bubbly white head. Loved the fruity yeasty aroma. Middling mouthfeel. Tastes of mocha, fruit, bubble gum, moderately yeasty. Drinkable and sweetish yet not too sweet. Good drinkability.

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

The beer has a general caramelly tone, a 1970s style Dijon yellow at its base and a more brunette, sandy auburn tone throughout; its light-friendly haze allows a chromatic warmth to emanate. Its head sits steadily in a zen-like state, although not terribly large in size it is unwaveringly firm and leaves lacing as thick and blanketing as a Siberian snowfall.

The beer may be brewed with the yeast strain of a Belgian monastery, but it brims with all the zest and colour of a bustling Moroccan marketplace; forget a quiet European convent and think more of the spirited fruit stands in Algiers or the rambunctious street vendors of Aleppo. The variety in this bouquet puts my local grocery store to shame.

And even though I know no actual spices were used, the aroma brims with such peppery, zestful fragrance that you can start to understand why kings would bankrupt themselves to ship men across treacherous ocean waters, into unknown foreign lands, and why these men, people like Columbus, would unreluctantly risk their lives to do it.

The clove, or anise, or cracked coriander seeds (whatever spice it is that it most resembles) is paired with dry cocoa powder, cinnamon sticks, bruised orchard fruits, rye and pumpernickel bread crumbs. The spices make for a taste reminiscent of Harira, a traditional Moroccan soup, while the malts taste of spiced apples and wholesome breads.

It's fragrant enough to make you sneeze and spicy enough to burn a hole through your tongue; say HELLO! to red hot phenols! This has enough firework-style crackle to make your eyes light up (the sizable alcohol content doesn't help). There is, however, enough bready malts and a suitable hemp-like, grassy bitterness to (somewhat) balance it out.

Talking to the brewer about this beer, he casually mentioned that it was just something he "threw together" to fill a tap line before his other beers would be ready for consumption. How modest. Duggan seems more and more like the magician with an endless bag of tricks; I'm happy he decided to pull this one out, it made for quite a show.