Fish Tale Monkfish Triple (2004-)

Brewed by Fish Brewing Company/Leavenworth Beers
Style: Abbey Tripel
Olympia, Washington USA

2004 Vintage - I did not like this quite as well as the previous barrel aged version of this, but still a damn tasty trippel. Hazy and cloudy, with a big bready flavor, with sprinkles of honey, figs and caramel and a lingering spiciness of ginger and hazelnuts.

(Bottle, 2004 vintage) Pours a cloudy orange body with a small white head. Aroma of caramel, fruit cake, butterscotch, and spices. Flavor of malt, fruit, and ginger.

Obscenely clear and magnifying transparent orange in color with some galaxy wisps serving as the head. Pencil erasers begin the aroma, trotting along with alcohol, cloves, honey suckle, dried sugared oranges and Pillsbury crescent rolls. Big tingly, authoritative first quaff. Breadiness and a gingerly citric quality butt heads. Nectarines and lemons try their best to blend with peppered banana phenols but it’s all for naught. Lots of bite and staunch. Dactylic alcohol and a harsh perfumey resonance. Tingly and biting on the palate, finishing with an alcohol burn on the cusp of the throat. Aftertaste curtails into lemon herbal butter on crescent rolls. With one exception, this brewery simply doesn’t play my song.

Thanks to egajdzis for this... This is the ’04 version. Appears a light gold with a small off white head that slowly settles. Spotty lacing is left behind. Smell is of caramel, tropical fruit salad, Leffe like yeast, vanilla. Taste is of vanilla, caramel, and tropical fruits, along with a yeastiness. Mouthfeel is slightly watery with vanilla and sweetness coming through.

Poured a reddish golden color with a small, off white head that left light lacing on the glass. Aroma of yeast, citrus, some tropical fruits, bananas, sweet malts, some yeast, and alcohol as well. Taste of more citrus fruits, and sweet malts, was very fruity and yeasty, but finished with strong alcohol.

Clear amber body with solid floaties. White head. Spicy sisal, yeast, nutmeg and bready pale malt in the aroma. The flavor emphasizes boosts the spice (pepper) and adds some stemmy hops to go along with the yeast in the finish. Light alcohol throughout. Hops, cider and anise in the finish. The beer’s flavor is too light (pale malts) to hold up to the alcohol flavors. I’m always been sensitive to those so the score goes down on that.

2004 Bottle. Hazy orange/amber pour with a very light off-white head and a significant amount of floaties. I really dug the aroma coming out of this... orange peel, spices (coriander and cloves), an underlying sweetness, apple, and rather well-placed alcohol. Rather watery on the palate with some spices and alcohol warmth on the finish. Decent array of spices, some orange, and some candi sugar in the flavor. Rather good tripel... I’m very impressed with this brewing co.

Pours a hazy a orange-amber with a wispy tan colored head. The aroma is spicy and lightly sharp, notes of alcohol, hints of vanilla, orange, cream soda, and a bit of dusty toasted malt in the finish. The palate is fairly full, yet dry up front, but the finish is quite sweet. The beer has a fairly good spiciness to it with notes of orange peel, earthy coriander, clove, and a bit of a cola-like cardamom, perhaps some ginger and a definite spicy pepper note in the finish. I would like this beer to be a tad drier, but it is still pretty good.

<font size=-4>Purchased via mail order: <a href=http://www.liquidsolutions.ws/main/>Liq Solutions<font size=-1>