Kingdom Sweet Kingdom
5 Paddles Brewing Company

 

Purchased at the brewery for $9.00 for a 650ml bottle. Served at 5deg C in a draught glass

A- Opens well and pours a 2" high white head that lasts for nearly 5mins before film out. Dark gold colour and filtered clear

S- Honey and Belgium yeast galore

T- WOW what a great Belgium yeast tripel. Honey just comes through. What a fantastic brew. Balance, complex and yeasty. Just as good if not better than many Unibroue beers which are very good. This one just changes as it warms amazingly. Not that sweet considering that sweet is in the name! Cloves and other spices abound but not intrusive.

M- Creamy good.

O- Amazing! Plain and simple this brew is fantastically good. I will buy on sight if I see it. Have few for later.

Food Pairing

This wonderful brew went well with...... Smoked salmon. A touch of capers and pickled onions and voila!

Enjoy

Kingdom Sweet Kingdom is considerably dark for a Tripel, which are often yellow and not, like this one, butterscotch amber. But it does possess the style's one characteristic calling card: a tall beehive of a head that's thick as wax and sticky as syrup. Even with that, however, it looks considerably different from its peers given that the second pour snuffed out all clarity and highlights.

Despite the addition of both vanilla and honey this doesn't smell overly sweet; it exhibits all the style's usual spicy, grainy aromatics and has an abundance of funky, festering fruit notes. Bear in mind, however, that even some traditional Tripels are made up of almost 20% sugar so that little bit of candy flavour isn't really abnormal, even if it is more pronounced and luscious than usual.

Nonetheless, Kingdom Sweet Kingdom is indeed sweet - is this a beer or a part of a cupcake mix? Like its little brother, Home Sweet Home, this has a flavour profile defined almost entirely by vanilla beans. If you're not one to find this kind of thing cloying then you'll love it. Admittedly the cream soda flavour might be a bit much were it not balanced by tastes of pear, apple and a little pinch of spice. But claiming this isn't delicious would be a hard thing to argue - so I won't.

I've seen New World brewers add all kinds of herbs and spices to their Tripel (typically in an attempt to match or mimic the complex myriad of flavours Belgian brewers achieve simply with their yeast). But vanilla and honey make sense as natural compliments to the style's fruit, grain and spice notes. True, they create a kind of "fresh baked", almost cake-like element but they don't compromise the esters or phenols and really help disguise that 9% alcohol.

It's been said the kingdom of heaven is not a place, but a state of mind - and lush, elaborate, high-gravity beers like this one are the stuff to take you there. Whereas some styles (i.e., Double IPA or Imperial Stout) will cause your eyes to pop out of their sockets, the more subtle, simultaneously sweet and savory ones like Tripels cause them to softly roll into the back of your head. Though it will have its critics, for me and my sweet-tooth, Kingdom Sweet Kingdom is a little sip of paradise.