Tripel
Mazama Brewing Co.

Bottle from Brewers Haven. Rough pour yields small cap of head, kind of weak,light copper body. Aroma is sweet and yeasty. Tadte too features the yeast, buttery, sourdough. Sweet, with tiny bite at back. Pretty close to style.

 

Poured into a Gulden Draak tulip. Pours a light to medium golden amber with a thin white head that dissipates to patches with slight lacing. Aroma of lightly grainy malt, apple and pear and clove; slight tartness. Flavor is grainy malt with some sweet / tartness, clove, coriander, hints of banana, apple and apricot. Clove and light fruit finish; spicy. Medium bodied with light to moderate creaminess. An authentic tasting domestic version of a Belgian tripel with a good Belgian yeast and grainy malt base and the expected light fruit notes. Spicing is assertive, but appropriate for the style. This had a little tartness to the flavor that seemed more appropriate for a Belgian pale ale, but overall fit the profile well. Won't replace my favorites of this style, but worthy.

Poured from 500mL bottle into a tulip. Bottle reads best by 12/2019.

Appearance: medium golden hue with a moderate effervescence and the teeniest, tiniest touch of haze. Head is a thick finger of frothy ivory foam; I rather like the look.

Smell: slightly sweet with a nice malty aroma; there's a bit of bready-biscuity aroma here that is not my favorite in a tripel. That said, it's still quite decent.

Taste: the biscuitiness of the aroma is gone in the flavor, but the sweetness is kind of doubled-down. Alcohol heat is relatively low considering the powerful 9.5%, but the sweetness is just a little too much for me; the overall flavor is not bad, though.

Mouthfeel: medium-rich body with a good texture and a moderate carbonation yielding a nice smoothness. I like it.

Overall: this is a pretty good tripel, although a bit too sweet for my taste. Just a hair more subtle and it could be really good.