Grand Cru
Brasserie de l'Abbaye du Val-Dieu

Poured at fridge temp. Pours a dark brown with surprisingly little head. Most quads have much more head than this. The nose is fantastic. Malts, toffee, yeast, gingersnap cookies, raisins, a bit of port, and prunes.

The taste is super smooth and delicious. Sweet toffee, loads of malts, some Belgian yeast, graham crackers, slight maple, apple pie, slight bitterness, and raisin. Lovely beer with a super smooth mouthfeel. Definitely not drinking like it's a 10.5% beer.

8 oz on tap at Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn. Strong but tasty!

330 ml stubby bottle, dated best by 01/08/24

Pours very dark brown, but pretty clear. Thick layer of off- white head. Great head retention. Aroma of candied sugar and crusty bread but also fruity plum and boozy peach. Taste is similar but with an earthy dry finish. Medium bodied, very smooth carbonation.

 

 

750mL (best by 2/2/2024) into a chalice. Pours a deep clear mahogany with a 1/2 finger khaki head, lively carbonation rises from the bottom of the glass.

Aroma is vinous and sweet—dark stone fruits, figs, dates, raisins. Toffee, caramel, candi sugar. Bready malt, Belgian yeast.

Taste follows nose—sweet dark dried fruits, complex sugars, Belgian yeast. Clove and spice. Almost no hint of alcohol but still nicely warming.

Mouthfeel is clean and balanced, wonderfully carbonated, with a deceptively dry finish for such a high ABV beer. Goes down easy, full bodied but not at all cloying or sticky.

Overall an outstanding Belgian dark ale, expertly crafted, delicious.
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Previous review from 11/28/2011 (saved for posterity)

4.13/5 rDev -0.7%
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4
750mL (best by 12/11? on cork) poured into a chalice. Crystal-clear mahogany color w/ a 1-finger khaki head. Nice bright carb.

Aroma is vinous grapes and some dark sugary fruits.

Taste is plums, dark candi sugar, grapes, and sweet malt. A little alcohol burn too, which I actually like.

Mouthfeel is velvety and smooth, with a clean dry finish.

Overall this one surprised me, I really liked it as a sipper over a dinner of Thanksgiving leftovers. Nice and warm and tasty.

Nice, barley wine, not sweet. But nice with cheese. Heavy beer. Good to drink slowly and no driving afterwards.

 

Hazy dark brown. Half a finger of white foam that leaves a bit of tracing in the glass. Smells malty with a bit of clove. Taste follows with some extra honey. Medium body that glides with ease due to the soft honey taste. Amazing mouthfeel. A bit sour before a bittersweet aftertaste. Pleasantly surprised.

Grand Cru pours a hazy, dark brown, with a small, fizzy head. Sweet sugary aroma, and spices with candy notes. Flavors are the same, sweeter, sugary, sweet spices. Good body and feel.

11.2oz bottle Best before end 27/05/23 poured into a teku glass at 50° Fahrenheit 10.5% ABV 19 IBU per label. The beer pours dense medium to dark brown with light brown head. The head recedes to a thin ring and island leaving behind some rings of lacing. The aroma is mild, yet rich, with sweet, bready malt, dark fruit and notes of dry red wine. The taste is semisweet burnt sugar caramel, blackberry, cherry, and oaky, dry red wine. Minimal bitterness. The mouthfeel is medium plus bodied with average carbonation and a semi dry finish. No hint of the ABV in the aroma or taste. Overall, very good.

11.2oz bottle poured into teku glass. Picked up from liquor store for a few bucks. 06/03/21 printed near bottom of back label, presumably that's the Bottled date. So this is only 1 year old. A little young for a quad maybe, so I'm expecting it to be a bit sugary.

Appearance - Some medium-sized floating sediment floating near the bottom of the bottle. Surprisingly little for the style in my experience. Is this not bottle conditioned? Pours 3-finger tan to light brown head with fine mostly-even sudsy consistency. Fine lacing and great stick. Clear black body that reveals a deep ruby-mahogany color only when backlit. Strangely enough, the second pour from the same bottle reveals a more luxurious head with a fine foam, also with great retention, but little to no lacing or stick. Very strange to have two completely head-pours from the same bottle, not sure I've ever encountered that before. 4

Smell - Yeast. Coffee. Banana. Booze pokes through as the head dies down. 4

Taste - Boozy. A bit of delicate coffee notes. Lacks pretty much any complexity. Boring. Maybe when it warms up something will happen. Not getting almost any of the candied sugars other people note. 3.5

Mouthfeel - A little harsh and astringent at first, but some creaminess comes through as it warms. Fairly clean and delicate as it warms. 3.5

Overall - You definitely want to have this at the right temperature. When it's too cold, it's harsh and one dimensional. As it warms, it opens up and becomes more delicate. There's not much complexity here though. But aside from the first sip, there aren't too many flaws either. It's a solid, if boring beer. 3.75

Very heavy on the banana clove flavors and candied sugars. Definitely a solid quad that I've had but not a personal favorite. Although having this on tap is pretty sick. It does seem the keg is a wee bit over-carbonated though so that's a knock.

One of the best beers I've had.

Bottle from Market of Choice. Haven't had a Val Dieu beer in, oh, 12 years since Max's

A deep mahogany brown with a dense, light brown head with good retention and lacing. The nose is very yeast forward, with rising fruitcake, dark fruit, yeast phenols and spices present. Dark brown sugar, dark caramel, raisins soaked in rum, leather. Its hard to overstate how yeast forward this is. On the palate, this is yeasty, fruity, spicy with loads of rising bread, fruitcake, brown sugar, caramel, dark honey. Rich, sweet, medium full bodied. Alcohol is well hidden but man!the yeast! As it breathes, it takes on a slightly metallic note with autolyzed yeast/marmite notes present. Sweet, fruity, spicy on the finish. Solid stuff.

 

11.2oz single

Look is dark brown-ruby, unfiltered and looks a beaut. Smell is dark fruit and caramel. Thick and chewy and sweet, the flavor here is unreal... maybe just a bit too sweet if I'm nit-picking...

750 mL cork and cage bottle purchased at the LCBO some time in 2018; best before Apr 11 2019 and served barely chilled. I think this might be the most 'expired' beer I've ever reviewed (almost three years past due!)... but it's a bottle conditioned quad, so I'm not terribly worried. Even still, I'd suggest you take this review with a few grains of salt, unless you've also been sitting on a bottle for 3 to 4 years.

Pours a muddy chestnut brown, taking on a brilliant ruby red hue when held to the light; gathered atop is one finger of smooth, foamy, light tan-coloured head that seeps down to a fat, creamy collar and thin cap over the next several minutes. An even curtain of fine lace is draped against the glass in the process - this beer may be old, but it looks fantastic in the glass. Confectionery and dark fruits on the nose - caramelized sugars and cola syrup, with hints of raisin, cherry and fig; hints of toffee, honey, and a modest whiff of booziness.

A pretty solid quad - lots of big malt flavours, without much in the way of yeast spiciness. Bready malts, candi syrup, toffee and a touch of chocolate syrup, with fruity notes of plum, fig and raisin not far behind. Remains sweet through the finish, joined by notes of pepper, clove and cherry; hints of mushy banana, toffee and dark fruits linger into a boozy-sweet aftertaste. Slightly tongue-numbing due to the abv. Medium-full in body, with moderately low carbonation that feels a bit frothy on the palate. It's a warming beer, but on a cold January night that's hardly unwelcome.

Final Grade: 4.19, a worthy A-. I sipped on this beer for the better part of four hours: 750 mL is probably too much for most folks, including myself, but that's my own dumb ass fault for not splitting it with someone else. Still, I enjoyed it for the majority of this extended session. If I'm fortunate enough to come across Val-Dieu's Grand Cru again, I'll be sure to try it fresh and compare notes... but for a beer that is already well beyond its best before date, I think it was still pretty damn good.