Orval

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

This batch was bottled on 22/04/2009 with an expiration date listed as 22/04/2014. Perhaps I did not chill it enough but the poor was copper in color with an extremely lightweight and foamy beige head with the texture of cotton candy. The mild and enticing aroma had a good mixture of sweet malts and light hops. The mouthfeel is full bodied. The taste is an ecstatic dry hopped and sweet malt balance. Topnotch. Next time I will let it sit for a couple years but I was anxious to give it a whirl.

Orval has a fairly hazy brown / orange color. The foam is very high. The beer smells very special, hay and fruit is the first thing I thought of. Herbs, a little grape and apple. A different taste in many ways, the feeling of the liquid is dry. Bitterness is light and the beer is easy to drink. Ok beer but I was not totally convinced

Pours orange with a ridiculously large head. Lots of great lacing! Big brett aroma of lemon, orange, elderberry, apple and musty horse-blanket. More like a lambic. First up upon tasting is sweet caramel malt, with some faint tart orange tang before a pithy bitterness cuts through. Hints of banana in there somewhere. Good light body with a refreshing carbonation.

330 ml bottle at Kuikka. Pours reddish-golden with a white fine head. Fruity fresh aroma has notes of hops and some sourness. A complex taste of hops and fruit. Balanced dry aftertaste. Delightful to drink.

330ml bottle (approx 6.2% ABV) into signature Trappist glass. Make sure you serve it at the right temperature. Pours hazy gold-bronze with a large rocky off white head that slowly dissipates to leave a thin collar of foam that lingers to the end of the glass providing excellent lacing. There is a lot going on in the nose with Brettanomyces yeasts, bitter oranges, earthy peppery spices and floral hops. The complex taste is subtle geuze-like sour at first but becomes sweeter on the mid palate (with a trace of oranges) and finishes with a wonderful lingering dry earthy piney hop bitterness. It is light-medium bodied with a perfect carbonation and a smooth mouthfeel that could almost be sessionable. This is easily the most idiosyncratic Belgian Trappist beer out there and I love it! I shall definitely be reserving a few of these for cellaring as it will only get better.

Bottle from Theatre of WIne, Greenwich. Pours a hazy amber with a soft, white head. Aromas of citrus, ginger, cinnamon, lemon zest. Plenty of carbonation. Flavours of lemons, tangerines, black pepper, orange peel. Nice bitter, yeasty, zesty finish. An old friend.

Pours a hazy ruby-orange copper with an incredibly soapy and rocky white head. The aroma is fruity, floral, spicy, sour, and dirty. Similar flavor, but soapy and bitter as well. Has a foamy light mouthfeel and a very dry finish. Different, but interesting. Bottled 9/23/08

330 ml bottle from LCBO, served at cellar temperature in a tulip glass. Tasted often before actually rating it.

App.: Cloudy amber with a large, loose off-white froth. Aroma: Strong sour cherries, wood, tang, funk and fruit, ginger, spicy, peppery, herbaceous, some light caramel, some citrus, bitter greens, yeast, very complex and thoroughly enjoyable. Palate: Medium body and fairly full but rounded effervescence. Flav.: Still plenty of sour cherries, quite fruity, more malt than the nose with some caramel and toffee notes, the funk-type notes are gone, the ginger is still there with other spiciness, woody and peppery, a touch of yeast; dry with some bitterness and a little alcohol, some malt to finish.

Quite the brew. Complex and always enjoyable. A triumph of Trappist brewing.