Abbey Ale
Cathedral Square Brewery

 

Tasty, smooth, simple.

I like this better than Ba's. Perhaps because I'm at STL airport and this is the best craft on offer at Vino Velo, an oxymoron. Solid 3.7 beer.
A) Pours mahogany color with a tan head thats airy but collapses too quickly and laces nada. Nice color, no bubbles.
s) A bit of dried dark fruits, soy, spice, spice cake. but too faint.
t) Honeyed, cola like with some white pepper and red wine notes. Also cherry and raisin flavors.
f) Feel medium bodied and low carbonated, Smokey and balanced in the finish, enjoyed as final beer of the session.
o) I'm fan of St Louis brewing but the base water as along the Mississippi cannot comare to the rocky waters of NYC-NJ.

Brown with reddish color. Nice big airy head. Smell is a Bit of clove, dried fruit, and slight banana on the back as expected from a Belgian. Taste is spicy and smooth at the same time. Some pepper, light clove, lots of malty goodness. Very little banana or Bubble gum which I'm Fine with.

 

 

 

 

not bad, not amazing, my first beer from these guys is a unique one, but definitely not my favorite. its a nice mahogany color with a head that looks very belgian, almost two inches tall and lacy and airy. it sells like dried red fruits, a little soy, clove, weighty crystal malts, and spice cake. the yeast is great, hints of red wine and white pepper from it, thats easily my favorite element here. i wonder if they used an extra non-grain sugar source, sort of has that brown sugar or honey quality to it, with some residual sugar for sure, but lots of cherry and raisin flavors too. medium bodied and well enough carbonated, they got that part down pretty well. this is a hard one to put my finger on, its like a little dubbel, without quite the malt depth, but there is some strange off flavor i dont care for here subtly, like it was fermented just a bit too warm or something, i cant get past it, and it turns me off from liking this as much as i would otherwise. i would like to try some of their other beers, seems like they have some cool recipes working, but this one seemed a little amateurish to me, as drinkable as it was.

Cathedral Square's Belgian Style Abbey pours a cinnamon color with a creamy 1 finger head forming a tight ring at the top. 30% opacity.

Even with some agitation, the aroma is hard to detect, but I get a touch of caramel-cocoa malts and dusty bubble gum. A little fruit rind as well.

The flavor exhibits most everything I look for in an Abbey : a rich, roasty malt character, a kiss of lactose, some backing of bubble gum, and a yeasty, wheaty finish. On top of that there's a bit of alcohol rub, making for a hot, toasty finish.

Feel is medium bodied, hard water carbonation, semi dry finish and breaths of alcohol.

Overall, Cathedral Square created a by-the-book Abbey with no bells and whistles, but that's okay. I'd buy this again, and enjoy it on the regular - if New Belgium's Abbey wasn't so available and less expensive ;-)

 

 

I purchased this beer in a 12 ounce bottle. When I poured it into my chalice I noted the nice dark chestnut color and a pleasant musty aroma one comes to expect from Belgian style beers. The head produced was short lived and left faint lacing. The one thing that detracted from this ale’s look is the lack of haziness. The flavor is a little watery compared to the Belgian imports I am accustomed to. I was also a bit disappointed in the flavor’s hop character that I do not feel is becoming of an abbey style. The mouth feel is quite understated. Although I may not go out of my way for this one again I cannot say it is a bad beer. I am glad that more and more of our domestic brewers are trying to emulate these Belgian ales.

Two full fingers of biscuity tan head is easily achieved with a medium pour. Head has nice retention and slowly turns to a creamy skim. Body is a beautiful brownish amber tone. Nose is very attractive with tons of sweet malts and rich dark fruits. It really smells nice. Taste doesn't replicate the nose much at all. At first I get dry bitter, almost burnt malts that are far from sweet. The malt flavor is actually a bit off. Almost comes off a bit cardboard like. There is some nuttiness there and a hint of rustic hops. This beer had such promise between the look and smell. Overall it just a ok beer.

 

This beer is so close to a belgian abbey (from belgium) but just a bit muted in most aspects. Tastes of very light malty/raisin sweetness with light bready, floral, leather, faint bitterness and estery yeast. Body is a bit thin for the style. I love a good belgian and trappist beer and this is damn close, worth a try and I will buy again.

 

L - Dark copper, reddish hue. Creamy three finger head. Poured aggressive. One finger head remained.

S - Floral scent, nothing in particular I can pick out. Smells metallic. Fresh baked bread.

T - Initially sweet. Middle was very floral. Had some bread in there too. A bit of the metallic taste was noted. Faded with a hint of bitterness. It was like it was telling a story, every stage was a bit different through out from beginning to end. Alcohol is hardly noticeable.

F - Carbonation was good. I thought the viscosity was proper.

Overall, I liked the complexity. It was not too busy to not give me certain notes but it wasn't plain Jane by any means. Mostly the beer never got boring and every drink was telling me different things about it. I like that in a beer. Drinkability for me would be fairly high on this one given its a 6.5% brew.

Would purchase again, would love to share it with my friends.

 

On tap at bar. Tasted a little flat.