MacTarnahans Gran Luxe Tripel Ale

Pour is a dark orange with a small white head. Aroma is some spice and fruityness along with some sugar. Flavor is a bit off with some candi sugar again and a spice but finishes with a stoung bitterness that leaves a sourness on the tounge. Maybe a bad bottle but this is not an above par triple. Alcohol is not a problem.

Thanks to Tom at Pyramid for breaking this one out. From a 22-oz. bottle--Poured a golden-straw-copper clear body with a small, rocky head. Yeasty, musty nose. Vinous, cidery flavor. Hints of apples, pears, and white wine. This beer survived four years at room temperature quite well. I would like to try another. Alcohol well hidden. Carbonation retained nicely. Quite good.

(Bottle) Pours a lightly cloudy orange body with a small off-white head. Aroma of horse blanket, mustiness, and fruitiness. Flavor of cherries, berries, caramel and grapefruit with a bit of a bite in the finish.

At first all I got for the nose was a snootful of soapy yeat, but as the head broke up, which it did rapidly, there was some sweet malt, cherries, and berries. Nice hazy amber body. The flavor is a fruity sweet malt, a touch of banana now added, and just a hint of its hefty abv. It has a sweet fruity finish with a low alcohol burn. Not bad.

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Not too much apparent in smell or appearence, the 9.3% isn’t really noticeable either. Pretty smooth, but also not that flavorful. I think this is a 2003 bottle. While not at the top of the tripel style, it’s pretty good.

65 cl bottle. Amber colour with a small head. Aroma of sweetness, spice, berries, wheat and some yeast. Nice flavour of deacetyl, banana, yeast and hints of coriander, very tasty and speciel.

Pours hazy orange with a cream-colored head. Aroma is nice, full of candy sugar, yeast, and wheat. The taste is not great, but very good. The alcohol is completely masked by the candied fruit and spices. Not heavily malted, so the wheat does come through. Like all MacTarnahans beers, good, but not great.

In the bomber bottle. Pours a cloudy copper-orange color with a yellow-white head. A strong medicinal aroma first emerges followed by a very strong alcohol burn in your nose. Flavor has an interesting candy sweetness, some nutty almonds, but definitely cookie-like. Surprisingly, there is no alcohol burn in the mouth or gullet. This beer has fine head retention and leaves exquisite lacing. As it warms, I get a slight aroma of saddle soap on a new piece of leather. While it was a fun beer to rate, this is probably in second place to a real hard-core Belgian Triple that is made well.