Anniversary Barrel Aged Tripel
Brewery Ardennes

This one pours a golden clear reddish rusted color, with a big fluffy white head, and lots of lacing.

This smells like herbal and clove-like yeastiness, vanilla, caramel, dried/dessicated coconut, and fruitcake.

This is really quite solid – I wasn’t sure what to expect here, at all. The barrel character is really nice, adding some dry bourbon spice, but mostly oak-derived characteristics, with distinct vanilla and even coconut notes on this. There’s a cake-like sweetness, with some stone fruit type flavors that remind me of fruitcake. The yeast character is restrained here, clove and spice, but not overpowering.

This is medium bodied, with a slight boozy warmth, but nothing overpowering, especially considering the lower ABV.

This was really impressive for an early barrel aged beer from this promising new brewery.