New Beer Weekend #88

A twofer – with two “P’s”

Today’s new beer is New Belgium Trippel and since this weekend is also the Tripel Tasting event this beer will do ‘double duty’.

As to why the New Belgium brewery chose to spell this brand with two p’s (Trippel) is a linguistic mystery to me. A Flemish vs. Dutch thing?

Below is how this beer is described by New Belgium:

“Brewed since 1992, this golden beer opens with a bold blast of spicy Noble hops, courtesy of Saaz and Hallertau Mittelfruh, and gives way to fruity aromas from our traditional Belgian yeast. Brewed with Pilsner and Munich malts, Trippel is classically smooth and complex. It also sings with a high-note of sweet citrus before delivering a pleasantly dry finish with a warm, strong boozy bite. But don't just take our word for it: it also won a gold medal for best Belgian-Style Tripel at the 2021 Great American Beer Festival.”

https://www.newbelgium.com/beer/trippel

Another detail on the bottle’s label: “Bottle Conditioned”.

Served in my Tripel Karmeliet chalice:

Appearance:

Light golden colored with a white head.

Aroma:

The aroma is a combination of spiciness and fruitiness.

Taste:

The flavor follows the nose with the combination of spicy flavors and fruity flavors but the spiciness is more prominent. There is noticeable impression of sweetness. A Low-medium bitterness. The alcohol level is well hidden.

Mouthfeel:

A medium body with an off-dry finish.

Overall:

This beer is pretty good. I enjoyed the flavor profile of spicy/fruity (albeit not in balance) but the aspect of sweetness was a tad too high for my personal preference for this beer style.

Cheers!

@rotsaruch @KOP_Beer_OUtlet @RobH

 

X-post from the Tripel tasting

Allagash is one of my favorite breweries. Their Tripel showed up here a couple of months ago and the Tripel tasting provided the perfect excuse to pick up a 4 pack


There is a good bit of sediment at the bottom of the bottle and avoiding that results in a translucent honey gold with lots of continuous tiny bubbles, a small short lived head that quickly becomes a long lasting film, and a simple light aroma of bananas, cloves, and a hint of tropical fruit

The first thing you notice about the flavor is that this is a sweet tripel. There is just over ripe banana, a bit of honey, a bit of tropical fruit (the passion fruit?), and some clove but nothing to balance it all out.

The carbonation gives you a full rounded mouth and is responsible for cleaning up the finish.

Over all this is a pretty good tripel, one I enjoyed and will likely buy again. Just be aware that it is an uncomplicated beer on the sweet end of the tripel spectrum

4.18/5 rDev +1%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

 

I will be on later. I have a lamb that needs to be put in the freezer. And few other chores before I enjoy a few new beers.

 

Good morning NBW
Cross post from the Tripel tasting

I've never purchased a Greens beer before not knowing what to expect, but while mail ordering tripels for a tasting, I loaded every one on the site that I hadn't previously reviewed.


500mL bottle bb 13/04/26 poured into a chalice at 44° Fahrenheit 8.5% ABV. Bottle conditioned and made from buckwheat, millet, sorghum & brown rice. The beer pours mostly bright medium amber with off white head. The head recedes to a thin ring and single layer of varied sized bubbles. Sticky web-like lacing. The aroma is faint with a hint of clovey yeast and light "malt" sweetness. The taste is semisweet with orchard fruit, mild clove and earthy medium plus bitterness. The mouthfeel is medium bodied with lively, above average carbonation and a semi dry finish. No trace of the alcohol in the aroma or taste.

I'm most shocked by the appearance of this beer. I expected no head or lacing, but they've done it with no barley. I enjoy the taste more because of the increased bitterness that other reviewers seem to have used as a reason to deduct points. The next time I order, I'll probably pick up the dubbel and possibly more.

Glad this tasting provided me with the opportunity to sample a beer I would have never purchased otherwise. Cheers all!

 

Poured into a 13 oz Teku glass canned sorry but 1/11/22 it seems like a bit past its prime. Pours a dark hazy orange with some floaties with a 2 finger sticky white head that leaves thin streaks of lace. 4.25

Aroma peach, mango, passionfruit, mandarin, and apricot. 4

Taste follows mango, peach, passionfruit, mandarin, and apricot. 4

Mouthfeel is above average, not sticky or dry, soft carbonation, and at 10% it goes down rather easy with some noticeable alcohol in the lingering finish. 4.25

Overall it is rock solid, but not as good as I had hoped. Who knows 6 weeks ago it may have gotten I better score. 4 Thanks @Mdog for getting the weekend rolling. Cheers

 

This is part one of a two beer post I will carry over into the Tripel thread, which I hope you can all join us sometime this weeked. I've enjoyed the Blue and Red over the years, the tasting inspired me to pick this up twice. This is the fresher of the two bottles purchased.

Chimay Cinq Cents



Bottle Notes: 11.2 oz, 8% ABV. L21-219, the 219th batch brewed in 2021, guestimating this is close to a year old. Brewed at Scourmont Abbey and bottled by Bieres de Chimay, 6464 Baileux, Belgium. Purchased single bottle for $7.75 with tax from Beer on the Wall 3/5/22, dropped by the distributor earlier in the week. Refrigerated since purchase.

Imported by Win-It-Too Inc., Middleton, Massachusetts.

Chimay's secondary fermented ales have neither been pasteurized nor filtered and only natural ingredients are used. To fully appreciate the agreeable combination of fresh hops and yeast of the Chimay Cinq Cents, serve chilled, in a wide mouth glass.

Appearance: Cloudy orange bronze colour, rich, creamy head leaves a generous thick cover upon it's initial descent, soapy lacing left in it's wake. Loks great. 4.5

Aroma: Soft yeast yields a light clove and banana, nominal spice. Fainter than expected, but pleasant. 3.5

Taste: Bolder than the aroma, clove leads. This has a stronger hops presence than I recall in other Tripels, and it brings depth and a citrus lemon flavor. Banana flavor subtle, works well with the other taste components. Light pepper at first, grows stronger as I work my way through the first half. Getting peppermint as well. 4.25

Mouthfeel: Creamy rich medium to full body, light fizzy carbonation lingers, very creamy head remains throughout, adding to the creamy feel. Drinks lighter than the ABV. Dry and a little chalky, everything works well, clean finish. 4.5

Overall: This is a well executed Tripel, though I expected a fine pour coming in based on their Blue and Red beers. Lighter aroma, varied taste flavors, like their use of hops, rich, creamy, decedent. Well Done Chimay! 4.5

My first bottle purchased a week before this one was brewed in what I guess to be the final few months of 2019, or beyond their 2 year recommended shelf life. I will compare this bottle to the beer I enjoyed above in the Tripel tasting thread. Hope to see you there!

 

Taking a brake from Tripels, and opened a Maine Brewing King Titus Porter. 7.5% ABV



Pours a dark brown, nearly black color. Some ruby around the edges. A dense beige head rises to over two fingers. Excellent retention and rings of lace.
Aroma is full on espresso beans in the nose. Wonderful roasted coffee and bitter sweet chocolate. Simple but excellent.
Taste wise, like the nose, the coffee house roastyness, and espresso beans specifically. Oh I love that bittersweet chocolate. Even some earthy hops round this out in the finish.
A full body with a good carbonation. There is a carbonated bite here, but just ultra smooth and silky as well. So easy and enjoyable to drink. I can come back to this easily.

My only quibble with this, if you can call it that, is calling this a Porter. At 7.5% ABV, why not call it a stout (it has a bigger ABV than their other two available stouts)? Though considering how interchangeable breweries use those terms, its no real issue, outside of at least one of those terms as a style descriptor being not relevant at all anymore. But I digress. Its a great American Porter/Stout, however this particular brewery wants to call it is fine. As always, Maine makes great beers period. Highly recommended.

Overall score is 4.38, an easy A almost A+ for me.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/20681/85822/?ba=champ103#lists

 

Brewing Projekt Smoofee Imperial Sour Raspberry/Blueberry/Guava/Banana, 6.94% ABV. Pour thick opaque rust, with a half-finger of light-red head that left puree residue. Nose is raspberry and blueberry. Taste is raspberry, blueberry and slight banana, couldn't pick out the guava. Lightly sweet, quite tart. Decent mouthfeel, overall very good. swapping the blueberry for plum would fix this. Not their best offering.

3.64/5 rDev +10.6%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 4 | overall: 3.5

 

• Burns Family Artisan Ales, Denver CO “Gallivant” — Gin Barrel-aged English Barleywine — 14.5% ABV - bottled June 2021 - a little bit hot, probably coulda let it sit for another month. Gin for sure! Balanced well with the sweetness of the Barleywine. Damn Good!

 

In the on-going Tripel Tasting, I've finally gotten to a new-to-me beer (and, spoiler alert - it's merely ordinary.)

I described this beer in the Tripel thread as "La Fin Du Monde's wheaty brother".

Unibroue Don de Dieu - Tripel #10
ABV: 9.0%
IBU: 10.5

BB: 10-14-24

A loud sound when TWISTING OFF the cap! Foam begins oozing out of the top of the bottle. Not a gusher, just a slow ooze.

Quite pale yellow-gold, hazy, and nicely carbonated. Foamy and fizzy head that, despite the active carbonation, never reaches more than ¾ inch or so due to it being so fizzy and receding fairly quickly. It leaves no lacing as it recedes, but some as I take a drink. But this meager lacing slides quickly down. (The empty glass has no lacing at all.)

The aroma is not strong. Initially, bready. If I tease it for a few minutes, some indistinct banana-esque fruit and spice.

The flavor is better than the weak aroma promised. Banana, clove-like spice, hints of apple, a bit of a tanginess. No bittering at all. Some hints of floral. The middle is smooth, with the tanginess keeping it from becoming too sweet. The finish and aftertaste, though, bring the sweetness up a bit for a generally sweet finish. The aftertaste remains sweet, tempered a little by the tanginess.

The mouth feel is moderate-to-thin and smooth.

Overall, this beer is merely OK to my taste. Nothing really stands out at the "outstanding" level, barely hitting "very good" in some aspects, so the overall is enjoyable but fairly mediocre. Perhaps my rating of this beer is biased low by comparison with those great tripels I had preceding it in my tasting lineup, but even allowing for that, I am disappointed.

PS: As I reach the final 3rd of the glass, I'm upping my taste and feel a notch. As the beer warms to room temp (NB: I did start out at cellar temp, not 'fridge temp, so... ), it does develop a bit more complexity and a more inviting feel. The Overall aspect remains at mediocre.

If this is the #10 tripel in the world (as ranked on this site), it must be riding on the reputation of the brewer. Just sayin'.

L: 3.75 | S: 3.5 | T: 3.75 | F: 3.75 | O: 3.5 | Rating: 3.64

 

I guess after revisiting Zoe I should revisit this one too, or mean old Tom if I ever come across again.

 

At my mom's this weekend outside Philly. On the plus side, was able to stop by Tired Hands to pick up some beer. On the other side, there's a distinct lack of appropriate beer glasses in the house. The cabinet that I got this out of is a treasure trove of glasses that all must be 30-50 years old.

For the record, Beaker is the best Muppet.

The beer is Found a Scythe, a Single hop Nelson Sauvin Double IPA canned two days ago.

3.81/5 rDev -9.7%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75

Appearance was tough to rate. Cloudy yellow-ish color that didn't particularly appeal to me, but a beautiful long lasting head and very, very nice lacing. Aroma is bright and hoppy with plenty of grapefruit and tropical notes.

Taste follows the nose with a melange of tropical notes, some of which taste faintly like tropical lifesavers (but in a good way). Medium-full mouthfeel that's pleasantly soft.

Overall a good IPA.

 

Good evening NBW
I'm back with an Indiana tripel side by side. Taxman's Exemption is 8.5% 30 IBU and widely available across the state. Warpigs The Apparition is a new release that hit town just in time for this tasting.

My review of The Apparition:

12oz can PKGD ON 02/11/22 poured into a tulip glass at 53° Fahrenheit, no ABV listed on label (9.5% says BA). The beer pours bright light amber in color with off white head. The head recedes to a thin ring and island of tiny bubbles. The aroma is pretty sweet malt with bubblegum and banana. The taste is semisweet banana, bubblegum, mild clove and then drops off to a barely bitter end. The mouthfeel is medium bodied, a little syrupy with medium carbonation and a fairly undry finish. Alcohol is pretty well hidden. Overall, a bit too sweet for me.

I've had Exemption many times so I'll point out the differences here. My can is dated 2/2/22, so similar fresness. The looks are similar with the Taxman being a bit less bright with better lacing and retention. The aroma of Exemption has more orchard fruit and less sweetness. The taste is bittersweet with notes of pepper, clove, pear and mild bitterness. The Exemption is medium bodied with average carbonation and a semi dry finish. Much more balanced than The Apparition. I prefer Exemption by a decent bit and my review scores reflect that.

This pairing will, more than likely, wipe me out for the night. I have two 330s and a 750 of new-to-me real deal Belgian tripels lined up for tomorrow. Cheers all!

 

I am always on the lookout for new American brewed pilsners. This somewhat pricey 4-pack of 16-ounce cans is from Unbranded Brewing Company in Hialeah, FL. Despite the odd label of a factory surrounded by dominoes, I was optimistic.

The deep golden pour reminded me of Pilsner Urquell, but the similarity to a genuine pilsner ended there. It is quite a bitter interpretation and has good flavor and is quite thirst-quenching; it just does not have enough characteristics of a classic pilsner. You will find none of the gentle hop bitterness balanced by the sweet cracker-like malt you find in the best interpretations; however, it is the perfect type of lager for the hot Florida climate.