Les Trois Mousquetaires MIM 2005 - Elie Roy, La Festive

Formerly brewed at Les Trois Mousquetaires
Style: Brown Ale
Brossard, Canada

Beautiful mahogany with red highlights body topped by a long lasting off-white head. I found the aroma to have a pleasant hashish character (unlighted hashish that is), no kidding. Others will describe it as a tobacco aroma only because their mothers read ratebeer. Taste is very malty, nutty, roasted bread, tobacco leaves, cacao and “grainy?” hops. Rich body. Intense rough bitterness with pepper and dry tree bark flavours. The transition from the initial malty taste to the hoppy finish is especially well done. The new offerings by Unibroue & other quebec breweries have beer quite disappointing lately. This is the best new beer in Quebec in a while.

Medium Hop aroma. Dark brown with good foam that could have stay a bit longer. Start with taste of chocolate and coffee and finishing with a good hop bitterness. Good beer Elie!!!!

Couleur brun foncé, très peu de collet. Arome de noisette et de malte torifier très agréable. Goût légé de noix, très amêre. C’est pas mauvais.

Dark rich brown color with a chocolate sweet taste.It has a malt bitterness with a long aftertaste.Congratulations Trois Mousquetaires you could compete with anybody with this beer.

Any first impressions?
-A healthy head recedes over the attractive, velvety brown.
-A rich, smoky, nutty caramel contains either lots of butterscotchy components, or a good dose of controlled diacetyl.
-An ingenious cohesion of roasted malt and resinous hop bitterness gathers other flavors in their purpose.
-A well-nourished yet drinkable body is maybe showered too hard by the effervescent yet fitting carbonation.

What if you dig deeper?
-An important lingering bitterness is mostly comprised of wooden hoppiness, but the roasted malts participate as well.
-Citrusy hop undertones are tasted within the toasted bread crumbs.
-There is enough caramel maltiness to support the multi-directional bitterness.
-A very successful brown ale for bitterheads.

Bottle; early 2006 release.

2006 bottle shared with Olivier on 8/25/06.
Very dark, deep, almost stout-like appearance for a brown ale. Ruby-chestnut and dark auburn hues cut the inky brown tones, however. Old-ivory colored head is small, but dense and recedes slowly to cover/ring, providing light, blotchy lacing. Low to medium clarity.
Both nuttiness and creaminess are heavy in the nose. Walnut paste, mixed with brown sugar and sweet vanilla cream. Quite luxurious and cut, on the finish, with some light lactic suggestions, bit of vinousness (prunes, berries). Definitely a great balance of tartness and sweet malts, without any boring astringency, or overattenuation leading to acrid brown malts and grainy, lean notes. Currants and raisins continue on, hand-in-hand with brown sugar, while a soft, dusty yeast begins to creep in with warming.
Bold and malty flavors shows wonderful extraction and provides a most fluid, creamy, and soft mouthfeel. Low carbonation helps concentrate the malts, but the tartness, some lactic notes, plenty of dark, boisterous berries and hop bitterness all combine to dry out the finish. It ends significantly more dry than it begins, but the texture is never compromised, nor is it ever "dry", which helps control the toasty/roasty/bitter malt notes. Attenuation is not taken down too far, which is a major problem of many brown ales. Moderate yeastiness on the end is soft and characterful. No doubt the hop flavor has greatly dissipated over the past months, but it is still a unique and well-done brown ale.

Dark reddish brown ale with a thin dissipating light lacing moka head. Pleasant butter nuts in aroma, actually quite pleasant and classy. In mouth, crisp metallic hops, with good nutty malt, roasted coffee beans, very sustained and rich. The more I Taste, the more I like it! A prize winner for sure. Bought at Joanettes, March 2006.

Clear mahogany beer that grows a model of an off-white head in my St-Ambroise glass. Lasting 1-inch cover of mostly regular bubbles that leaves a souvenir on the glass sides with every sip. Well extracted malts bring forth gentle hazelnut aromas. Honest roastiness contributes soft chocolate nuances that borders coffee. Toasted bread and strong leafy aromatic hops pair along to create a balanced quaffer. Warmed up, a siding minty/fluoride note grows up in the nose as well as a dry version of pistachios ice cream, adding some depth to this unpretentious offering. Well supporting carbonation, medium bodied, almost airy texture. Well well well, if I rated strictly to style, this would be a stunningly successful brown ale, hoppy and lively with a long bittersweet (nuts, chocolate, floral hops) finish. It grows quite bitter after a few sips, definitely quite dry and keeps hinting at an astringency that doesn’t reach dramatic proportions. Rating for strict pleasure, it is still an achievement.