How consistent is Orval?

I am a huge fan of Orval. With that being said, Brett is very inconsistent. Being that it is a live yeast, there is no telling what it might do when it's confined to a bottle for a long period of time. I've had various aged and fresh bottles of Orval and every experience has been different. That's what makes trying that beer an experience.

So in short, being that Brett is inconsistent, that would make Orval quite inconsistent. The base beer is the same, but the Brett is the variable.

 

Given that Orval has Brett Brux added at bottling I am uncertain how to answer a question of "How Consistent is Orval?". This beer is 'designed' to evolve with age in the bottle.

I suppose a hypothetical question could be asked of: Is Orval consistent at x months of age? But even this question is truly unanswerable since how the beer was stored (e.g., temperature of storage) over those x months will influence the flavor profile of the beer.

Ironically I posted recently on the a topic which involved the brewing of Orval beer here:http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/ipa-ignorance.362103/page-3#post-4310486

Cheers!

 

I've had it a few times over the years, and never had a bad bottle.

Cheers!

 

But as I already opined that question can't really be answered (Is Orval consistent at x months of age?) since how the beer was handled and stored is a variable.

IMO Orval is an inconsistent beer due to how the beer is 'engineered' and the circumstances of the beer distribution and handling system.

Cheers!

 

We get it almost always at about 5 months old and I can usually find it up to about a year old if I look around. I'm actually shocked that you get it so old in your market and have to wonder where that beer comes from as I know it's getting to the US years before that.

I've found the brett to be less forward recently and haven't liked it as much in the last couple bottles I've had. I heard a rumor that there was a recipe change, perhaps even before the new brewmaster came on, that has affected bottles going back a year or two at this point.

 

I've also noticed that the Brett character really changes the beer over time. A bottle that's one year old is far different to a three or four year old bottle. The funky Brett notes get stronger and stronger and eventually get off-putting in my opinion.

Try tasting a little vertical of Orval if you can put one together sometime. It's an interesting experiment for sure.

 

While I don't have a lot of experience with Orval fresh from the brewery, the few times I have had it fresh in Belgium and here in the Philly area it was pretty consistent. That said I'll echo some of the things said by others, in some ways as it matures in the bottle it changes enough to almost seem like a different beer, say at 1, 2, 3, and 4 years old. For me its always been an amazing beer to purchase a half case as fresh as I can get it here in the States and then drink one every 3-4 months as it changes over time. I'd not say it gets better but it is different and doesn't seem to go downhill.

 

Orval tastes like Orval. It's very distinctive whether it's a fresh or aged bottle.

 

I have never heard about 2 strains. It has always been my understanding that they add Brett Brux at bottling.

Cheers!

 

Even fresh from the Brewery the beer has been in the bottle for 2 months. That being said there is a Best Before date on the bottle so you can either shoot for the freshest you can get or not care and just enjoy an evolving product.

 

I bought some at the Orval gift shop, beer on one side and religious icons on the other side. It was malty and hoppy, not like what I have had in the US. The beer's body thins out, and the hop character fades with the Brett's action. Eventually it becomes a Brett beer.

 

It's consistently awesome.

 

Orval is wonderfully inconsistent

 

Have had the beer at the abbey and there is one in the frig as I type. Orval is always great!

 

if you mean tastes the same, it doesn't, but that's not what you would purchase it for, as many people pointed out it has wild yeast, so the beauty of it is that it varies, as far as being consistently good, I would say yes

 

Every year the LCBO gets a shipment of Orval, and I buy about 12-15 bottles, so I have multiple bottles from different years in my cellar at all times. The shipment is usually around 3-4 months old when I buy the bottles, and at x months, the profile is very consistent.

In my opinion...:

0-6 months: Almost like a cask ESB. This is my personal favourite Orval. Perfectly balanced with only the slightest barnyard coming through at 6-8 months. Having such wonderful funk character hiding in the background of an otherwise conventional bitter makes this age the most complex. It barely shows itself, like the shark in Jaws.

6-12: etc.

12-18 months: the phenolic character comes to the foreground and the hops fade. The beer is taken over by all kinds of funkiness, but the subtle "beeriness" is lost.

24-36 months: the beer is extremely phenolic and some cidery character comes into the picture. Almost acetaldehyde like. NOT my thing.

**There are two beers called Orval: Orval under a year, and Orval over 18 months.