Orval Day - Saturday, March 22nd!

I need to pick one up. I had one from 2023 I was trying to save but drank it last month. Hopefully there are still some left at the store.

 

Are Orval bottles dated? My store has dust on them, and they are on a floor-level shelf so I never consider them for purchase. Any opinions on how aged they reasonably can be and still be good?

 

Aged Orval is great...a couple of years on it, and it is very different than fresh (more hoppy than I expected when I had it fresh in Belgium), which is very different than with 6 months to more than a year (fruity esters to more funk depending on age and handling). Its all great in its own way though. Its one of the few beers I will age for a year or two.

and the label will have both a bottled on and best by date on it.

 

They have a best before date of 5 years after bottling. They’re refrigerated at the store here but I tend to keep them at room temperature in a dark cabinet (I just don’t have the fridge space these days). 2 years or less has always worked out well for me, never have had one any older than that. However, if I did happen to find one a few years old I would still buy it out of curiosity.

 

I have seen these out, and never tried one. So, is it a bitter hoppy beer? The older it gets, does it change characteristics?

 

Its a Belgian Trappist beer made with Brett, which is a unique yeast that develops more over time. Which can be anything from fruity esters, to a more "funk" which is the colloquial term some use here for that yeast. Particularly fresh bottles can be more hoppy, for me anyway (I was only able to get it that fresh in Belgium). For, me its one of the best beers available.

 

Thanks. I think we have a few available at my work. I will pick one up.

 

It's been around 20 years since I had a couple bottles, so this will be a relearning experience for me. That experience may have been my first exposure to a wild ale taste, and I remember mostly a hoppy, horse blanket/barnyard character to it. I've had many wild ales since then that have had that barnyard taste and have enjoyed it.

 

Doesn't really matter too much for Orval but for clarity, it's the international date format -> DD/MM/YYYY.

 

Remember to pour it fast, in a smaller glass!

 

I'll have to substitute a different chalice;

 

It's a really unique beer.

If you find a fresh one (say under 3 or 4 months) it's a surprisingly modern tasting hop forward pale ale. As it ages the hops fade into a more generic bitterness and the yeast blend takes over.

Definitely worth experiencing if you like the wide variety of beer flavors as its fairly unique in the current US market and is also completely unique among trappist beers

 

The ones at my work were produced in September 2024

 

What type of glass works best for this beer?