Orval

Brewed by Brasserie dOrval
Style: Belgian Ale
Florenville - Villers-d.-Orval, Belgium

11.2oz bottle, bottled on 5/06/08. Cap came off with a loud pop. Pours a hazy dark orange with an enormous off white peaky head. Great retention and some decent lacing. Aromas are funky citrus, barnyard yeast, and some sour fruits. Flavors of funky yeast, some decent hop presence, a bit of sour fruit, citrus, and the brett is kicking. Delicious stuff!

dark -orangish in color with immense white head.Still waiting for it to settle to take that first taste. Beer seems to be tempting me to wait longer for that first sample. Looks picture perfect in the glass. Has a sourish taste but not one that puts off the taste. The 6.9% alc. vol. is not noticeable. Well balanced. I would like to try this again with someone that has more expeerience in taste rating so that I can get a beter understanding of this beer. Very good.

Sampled at the Sam Smith tasting at Blacklick Wine and Spirits on 2.5.09. I finally get to see what all the fuss is about. Copper color with a huge off-white head due to bottle conditioning. Sour and yeasty aroma, but the sour is more of a fruit sour than salad dressing sour. Definitely getting some berry and cherry notes. Funky tart and fruity flavor with some alcohol. Everyone knows I don’t care much for the Belgians, but I can recognize when one is well-made. On top of that, I could actually see myself buying this.

Bottle (33cl) Pours hazy orange with a thick, fluffy head. Wonderful perfumy, yeasty aroma with hints of spices and citrus. Sour body with dyamic mouthful of flavors... alcohol, yeast, malt... extremely well balanced potpourri of spices. Outstanding beer with a slightly bitter finish.

Bottle. Hazy golden colour with nice white head. Aroma and flavour of fruit, spice, yeast and hops.

2007 Bottle, served cellar temperature. Aged over a year. This beer is immensely fragrant; a huge aroma hit immediately as I opened the bottle. In the glass, it is golden orange with a one inch, off white head. There is very nice lacing on the glass as I sip it. The aroma is wonderfully rich and densely layered. Cellared, it is denser than a fresh bottle. There is still some of the flowery lightness to the aroma, with lemon, but the grape element is darker with some cherry and sugar like fresh homemade candy cooking on a stove top. The mouthfeel is delicate, a bit oily; the carbonation has died down quite a bit with age. I taste smooth subtle hop bitterness throughout with plenty of floral flavours, tartness, some lemon, orange and zest.

(bottle from tesco’s, Diss) Pours a dark amber with a good white head. Smells yeasty, orange, with a hint of tartness. Brilliant taste, mouth explodes with sweet orange and fruit, candy floss, spices and finishes with a dry, warm whiskylike finish. Hint of tart aswell but I had a fairly young bottling (October 2008) so was mostly clean. Huge and awesome.

12 oz bottle. Pours a reddish-amber color with a full-finger off-white head that disappates quickly. The first thing you notice though is the smell with sugar, yeast, malt, and hops, and possibly some fruit. Tastes of dried fruit (might be raisin?), some sugar, and a light hop presence, with a very smooth mouth-feel afterwards. The taste was slightly disappointing, with such a complex smell I expected more of a full-bodied taste, but it was still quite good.