Belgian Essence
Brewery Ommegang

Look: It pours yellow-orange and a bit cloudy. It has a white head with excellent head retention.

Smell: It starts with a sweet and dry aroma. There are flowery notes with Belgian funk and a bit of spice.

Taste: It has light grainy sweetness with some flowery elements and a bit of spice. There are Belgian funk elmeents with some hay and barnyard notes.

Feel: It has a medium body with smooth alcohol warming and a dry finish.

Overall, it's a quite easy drinking beer with nice crisp flavors.

 

From a bottle, the body pours a golden amber with good fluffy white head and light lacing.

Aroma has a mix of floral and clove along with Belgian yeast. Delightful.

Tate follows nose and offers a nice fruit element. Pears and melon. A wee trace of bubblegum and a bit of funk at finish, which dried up quickly.

Mouthfeel is good, soft with good carbonation.

An easy drinking tripel offering as its name implies an essence of a belgian beer wrapped in a fruity Hefeweizen.

You fellas overhyped this one :( love ommegang but this just tasted like a standard ipa. Not what I was looking for with this beer.

Most amazing feel for the beer nice carbonation, amazing lacing, perfect golden color a little haze everything you need in there awesome triple cheers

 

 

Cloudy orange body, huge off-white head, spotted lacing. Smell of flowers, citrus zest, mild esters and belgian yeast. Taste is led by the belgian yeast with floral esters and big orange. Certainly new world but very well done. Body is short loved but a good trip it was: soft, bright, light and has a springy spirit to it. No real weaknesses here, but leans fully into the "flower field" side of the tripel spectrum

This one pours almost clear and rich amber. One and a half inches of off-white head slowly settles to a dense, quarter-inch blanket. Big patches of sticky seafoam cling to the tulip glass. Ample tiny carbonation forms and dissolves in columns throughout.

Hops perfume the air with clove and coriander quickly following. Lemon makes a brief appearance, quickly being displaced by earthy yeast. There is a light horse-blanket aroma.

Mild bitterness is matched by sweetness. Green grapes, coriander, and watercress are countered by tangerine pith. The finish is short, bold, and earthy.

Mild astringency and alcohol are on target, as is the scrubbing carbonation. It has a medium body and the texture of coarse linen.

This was a good choice to aid decompression after a stressful day. It would likely pair well with sharp cheddar or pungent roquefort. A late addition of yeast softened and mellowed, while enhancing aroma, flavor, and body, making for a nice transformation.

Poured from a bottle into a snifter
Appearance – The beer pours a hazed golden amber color with a large head of puffy white foam. The head has a great level of retention fading over time and leaving tons of foamy lace on the sides of the glass.
Smell – The aroma is strong of a cracker malt smell with lots of coriander and clove as well as some apricot and grape. Along with these smells comes notes of lemon as well as light vinegar. Other aromas of some funk and a bit of must are there as well, producing an interesting and intriguing aroma overall.
Taste – The taste begins with a cracker malt flavor that has notes of apricot and white grape sweetness. There is a rather strong showing of coriander and clove upfront, with these flavors remaining rather strong throughout. The sweetness initially increases as the taste advances, only later to decrease again. With the initial sweet increase, comes some new flavors of a light bubblegum and some pear. Toward the end, the must and hay that were in the nose comes to the tongue, and with some floral flavors, it leaves one with a crisp Belgium triple/white wine like taste to linger on the tongue.
Mouthfeel – The body of the brew is light for the abv, but normal for the style, with a higher level of carbonation. For the triple and wine tastes the feel is great and makes for a nice clean sipper.
Overall – A quite tasty and enjoyable brew with lots of flavor and a very easy drinking nature.

 

 

 

Pours an effervescent amber with 2 fingers of cream-colored head. Pretty good lacing & head retention

S: Bready notes, some yeasty notes once warm, some peppery hops

T: Pears, white pepper, clovers, some breadyness & some phenol notes & a touch of wet hay, plus coriander up front. Pears, dryness, green apple skin & grassyness as this beer warms up, just a touch of pomelo as well. Finishes dry with some pear, more green apple skin, a whisper of pineapple & white grapes, plus coriander & yeastyness, plus lime in the finish

MF: Medium body, lively carbonation

Solid Tripel, but was wanting little hop flavor pop. I have high expectations on Belgian style offerings from these guys, this one kind of fell short. The nose was underwhelming as well, a little too safe for my tastes

Appearance:
Poured into a pint glass from bottle. Dusky Orange apricot in color. 1/4 inch of fluffy white head with curtain lacing.

Aroma:
Some sweet orange. Grapefruit pith. Grapefruit.

Taste:
This is my third bottle out of a four pack (enjoyed on different days) and it tastes better than the others. Could be the setting or inconsistent bottles. Probably the glass and the setting. Some breadiness, citrus, grapefruit pith, afterthought of bubblegum on the very back end. Some bitterness in the middle. A faint metallic/hoppy/bitter note that creeps in randomly.

Mouthfeel:
Full bodied but not viscous. Slightly effervescent carbonation.

Overall:
Pretty well balanced, but more on the bitter end of the spectrum than I prefer. Reminds me of an ipa. My preference is for a breadier, sweeter, banana flavor profile, Like a really strong Hefeweizen. So, I prefer New Belgium’s regular Trippel or Honey Orange Trippel to this from Ommegang. If you like WCIPA’s, you’ll enjoy this. It reminds me of Duvel, but not quite that bitter.

 

A: Pours a hazy golden/yellow color. A dense white head rises to the point of being difficult to pour from the start. A sheet of lacing is left behind.
S: Oh I love the spicy yeast and ester punch right up front. Pears, apples, pepper, doughy bread. Love it.
T: Again, that spicy yeast and ester quality. Which leads to pepper, pears, apples. More citrus this time as well, doughy biscuits, and honey that leaves some sweetness in the finish. Lots going on here, and really well done.
M/O: A medium to full body. At first crisp carbonation, but that becomes ultra smooth as this breaths. I can do more than sip on this. Dangerously drinkable.

A great example of a Belgian Tripel. Which I would expect with a collaboration between Ommegang and New Belgium. Seriously wish they both stuck to these styles. All around excellent.

Orange gold color. Light head. Strong scent of hops. Strong perfume flavor, on top of classic Belgian strong pale ale. Yet, not terribly bitter. Drinkable, with average effervescence.

Drink this for the experience. Drink it again for the subtleties.
I'm lucky, I just got the last 4-pack on the shelves before it starts to become a memory in Chicagoland. But I hope they release Essence again next year. And not many improvements need to be made.

Essence has a Lucious Look. Full foam on a pulsing pale body. Smells seem complex; herby, fruity, yeasty, but still intriguing in its balance. Tastes are totally intriguing and I hope to describe them in a second bottle; but balance is key in my book. My mouth is full and active and scrubbing away at the fats in appetizers I had tonight.

I am a huge fan of Ommegang and particularly how Duvel gives them arms-length management. I certainly hope that rubs off on the owners of New Belgium, particularly since their employee ownership ended in such a short-term farce.

11/12/23 Had the second copy of my coveted 4-pack. Edited the above only a bit and not the rating: the second impression is as good as the first. However I'm thinking this brew has my favorite Ommegang ingredient: grains of paradise. I find it a great importer of complexity. And its use deserves every word of my high praise.