New Belgium Abbey Grand Cru

Brewed by New Belgium Brewing Company
Style: Abbey Dubbel
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

Crushed with Jakebra and Honkeybra at the brewery. Why is this rated so high? I know my expectations were low from the beginning... Very appely, musty nose and flavor. It’s nice, but I’m glad I didn’t need to drink a pint of it.

Reddish-amber color, off-white head. Aroma of caramel malt, dark fruit, candi sugar, and yeast. Nice complex flavor. Starts with banana, then moves on to cherries and other dark fruits. Fairly malty and yeasty as well. Nice fairly full palate. If this is new Belgium, who needs old Belgium? An excellent brew overall. I could drink 10 of these, and I would if there weren’t other beers to try and a little annoyance called having to drive.

Sampled on draft at CityBeer. Dark malty sweet aroma with beige head atop dark viscous pour. Flavor is dark fruit and alcohol burn that sweetens in finish.

(Draught) Pours a amber-brown body with a medium beige head. Aroma of raisins, brown sugar, toasted grain, caramel, toffee, and nuts. Flavor of caramel, toasted malt, nuts, raisins, and some banana.

[Draft at the Hop Leaf] Poured a hazy brown purple color with a small, off white head that left light lacing on the glass. Aroma of dried fruits, toasted malts, toffee, spices, and yeast. Taste of dark fruits, caramel, spicy yeast, banana, nuts, citrus, and light alcohol in the finish.

Draft at Brouwers. Sweet, bready, yeasty with lots of red fruit. robust, full. balanced and tasty.

Sampled on tap at 1702 Tucson AZ
Arrives in a frozen, frozen, frozen fucking glass. I don’t know why I expected this to automatically served in a warm tulip glass; I am so pissed at myself for not specifying; oh well perhaps I’ll remember next time. As I transfer my pint to a Belgian tulip aromatic notes of banana come out. The beer is topped by a frothy, initially three-finger thick, lightly tan colored head. The beer is a lightly hazed, amber color that shows a flash of color when held up to the window on this Tucson afternoon. Ample banana notes lead to notes of sweet plums, raisins and a fair amount of spicy clove. There is a backdrop of caramelized grain and toasted malts towards the end of the nose. The nose is very ester driven, and is definitely quite influenced by the fermentation / yeast character.

My first sip shows a firm, but not overly so, sweetness that accentuates lots of fruit notes (banana and concentrated pear are most prominent), this is backed by a nice spiciness (product of both carbonation and fermentation character) that provides a peppery bite and a touch of young-ginger like spice. My pizza cuts through the sweetness a bit and brings out a bit more of the spiciness. The fruit character is the most prominent set of flavors here with notes of banana and pear being joined by apple reminiscent notes, perhaps a touch of raisin and some definite bubble-gum (both juicy-fruit and hubba-bubba). Clove phenolics mix in with the fruity esters and tend to linger on in the palate with a soft turpene like bite. This definitely has a heft to it with a medium sort of body that tends to stick to the palate; this is definitely a sipping beer. Much of the sweetness here though is accentuated by the esters and clove notes rather than straight residual malt sugars.

This has a nice balance between the sweet, fruit driven notes and the spicy fermentation character, but somehow it seems to be lacking a little something to be really balanced. It is very tasty though, and I am quite pleased to finally get a chance to try this beer.

on tap at 1702 nice presentation in proper glassware. nice white head with decent lacing and perfect bubbles. crimson color is quite hazy but nice. aroma is sweet and yeasty. belgian flavor really comes through. breaddy and nice. really good belgian not overly sweet.