Harpoon 100 Barrel Series #03 - Abbey Style Ale

Formerly brewed at Harpoon Brewery
Style: Abbey Dubbel
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Orangey, hazy appearance seems like a dubbel/tripel hybrid to me. The aroma is of pale malts, yeast, hops. Light, fluffy, somewhat apricoty dubbel flavours, but with a drier, yeastier tripel finish. I wondered what precisely they meant by "abbey-style" and now I know - they mean that they were shooting for either a dubbel or a tripel but got both!

This strikes me as much more a tripel than a dubbel. Nevertheless, clear light-amber body with small off-white head. Aroma is candy sugar sweet, orange, some spearmint, light alcohol. Taste is candy sugar sweet, orange, some yeast and raisin. Medium-full body.

Pours a cloudy copper with a thin off-white head. Sweet bready and Belgian malt aroma. Body is lightly caramely and bready sweet with good yeast character and a touch of candi sugar. Finishes dry and semi-bitter. Could use a little more balance and complexity, but otherwise a nice dubbel.

Considering what I went though to track a bottle of this one down (finally found a bottle tucked away in a dark cooler in a small bottleshop), I found this to be a pretty poor example of a dubbel. Pours copper with a thin white head. Smells more like a simple white beer with coriander and other orangey notes present. Taste is very orangey with some coriander and banana notes. Disappointing.

Bomber. Massive lasting head, bright orange hazy coloration. Yeasty, banana-tinged nose; surprised no one else has connected this with a Wit, as that's what I'm getting. Nice but puzzling. Flavor fruity but rather sour throughout, pepppery and dry towards the end, and a bit too thin. Really falls through after a promising start, IMHO. Drinkable, but well short of both of the other 100-Barrel series, and of most Dubbles I've tasted.

The beer after extravasates the 22 ounce brown bottle set in the glass an opalescent and slightly hazy orange, the head is moderate in size, creamy in texture and a toothsome light tan. The nose is sweetly malt, fresh crisp and clean with a slight hint of yeast, a nice sniffable beer, start is sweet and pleasingly malted, the top is middling in its feel to the palate. The finish is sternly acidic, the hop pleasing and relatively mild, quite dry aftertaste that lingers long on the palate.

Batch date 9/8/03 drank 3/8/04. Hazy light orange color with a small bubbled large white head. Banana and light fruits and alcohol in the aroma, thin bodied with a sweet ending and some bready notes. Certainly not a dubbel.

Appearance: clear, bright peacy color, with a big, thick, foamy white head. Nice looking, but from the name "abbey ale" I expected something different. Maybe more like a dubbel or a tripel? Aroma: sweet, candyish, fruity, citric, I’m really picking up a witbier vibe in this, and I also, as others have mentioned, can easily discern that "bubblegum phenol" that’s all over this...a little unsettling, actually. Taste: smooth, easy, and shallow in the arena of complexity, I’m sorry to say. Quite quaffable, with that sweet, candyish character remaining throughout. Very light in body, with minimal texture, and a forgettable finish. It’s a good solid beer, but hard to categorize, feeling like a cross between a witbier and a tripel, without containing the better parts of both.