SP Belgian Ale
Warehouse Restaurant & Gallery

Draught @ Palmer Lake Brewing Company. Brownish Gold. Dark in color for the style, but i’m not stylistic when it comes to beer, so I don’t care. Lovely, yeasty, fruity aroma with hints of bubble gum, banana, pear and clove. Spicy, citrusy, phenolic and very fruity with notes of bubble gum and clove. An enjoyable brew.

The beer pours a dark gold color with a thin offwhite head that fades to lacing. The aroma is good. It has a very fruity pale malt and Belgian yeast scent. It pale with some light crystal malts. The taste is good also. It has a smooth pale and light crystal malt flavor that is dry and fruity. It goes down easy and finishes dry and slightly warm. The mouthfeel is fine. It is a medium/full bodied beer with adequate carbonation. This is a good tasting Belgian. It's full flavored and true to style; a good drinker.

It's a good thing I don't turn beers away based on appearance. I've seen and enjoyed many nicely cloudy ales. I've never seen anything this opaque from yeast before. It looked like the waitress took a vial of yeast and dumped it into my beer on the way to the table. This I could deal with, it was the fact that all that yeast gave this Belgian ale a strange opaque greenish-yellow look that was really not that appetizing. Perhaps I was just getting the bottom of the keg. Anyway other than that this is a pretty good beer. The smell is very yeasty/fruity, dominated by musty banana with a bit of apples. The taste is slightly sweet, and fruity, and really gives very little indication of the 10%abv that PL claims. Nice medium body and slightly dry finish are also worth noting. This is a very solid offering from a small operation. Is this one of the best Belgian strong pale ales I’ve had? No. But I’ve also not tried one from a brewery this small, and I’ve got to give them credit for producing one that is pretty good and worth trying again.

I was given a bottle of "Batch No. 1" by the brew master Alan Stiles to "try out." He had made up a batch that, according to the label, is 10% ABV, not 7 as reported on their Beer Advocate listing. Alan tells the story of his friend who "drank a bottle of SP with me, and then rode home on a bicycle - he arrived home, and the next day discovered a cut on his nose and a dented bicycle - but no memory of how either happened. Dangerous stuff!" A nice foamy head that dies, leaving no lacing after a few minutes. A nice strong aroma of apples (?) mildly musty or smoky - definitely fruity! The initial taste is apple-grape-sweet raisin, the middle is mild malt and cider, medium thick body, followed by a crisp currant-flavored finish, nicely dry and clean. VEEEERRY interesting!