Rochefort Trappistes 8

Brewed by Brasserie Rochefort
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Rochefort, Belgium

Aromas include bread/yeast, alcohol, and plums. Appearance is mahogeny with HUGE off white head that is massively retained and gigantic lacing. Flavor is delicious. Multiple layers of flavor, including esters. Palate is like chewy fruit. Has a very strong lingering finish. Very expensive, but worthwile.

spicey taste of cloves, nice red colour

Bottle from trade with jbrus. Okay, so I'm rating this the same as I did Rochefort-10. Not sure if it's because I really think it's as good, or because I was less experienced when I drank the other Belgian heavyweights, but this stuff is great! Dark brown appearance with very small amounts of yeasties. Delicious chocolate and caramel in the flavor along with some pears and plum. The flavor could be perhaps amplified a little but that's my only complaint. Classy mouthfeel. Nice!! Thanks to jbrus.

I love Trappistes 10, so I figured I would love this one too...and I was right! The head is big, tan, foamy, with some lingering lace. The color is very dark, mostly opaque, even under strong light. The aroma is sweet, like candied fruit and yeast. The taste is similar but with notes of currant and overripe apple thrown in. It’s amazing! Not too sweet, not harsh in any way! It finishes a bit sticky on the lips, and the alcohol warms on the way down but not as much as the 10. Overall, this is a fantastic brew! I will buy the 10 AND the 8 from now on!

opaque brown color. Moderate head which turns in to a velvety solt bed of creamy bubbles - like the last bit of cream on top of a rootbeer float. Quite assertive at first but after sitting everything comes out. Dates, cherries, toffee, slight licorice, wintergreen, dark candi, sour apples...I’m sure there are more but this sample is gone. Finishes very light with a hint of malt and spice. Very smooth after it warms up. Do not service this one to cold.

While I loved 10 I like this one better - this is newly an all time favorite of mine. Poured very dark amber brown with a creamy light tan head. The aroma is incredible containing cream, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, cocoa and lactic qualities. It reminds me of a cross between a trappist ale and a very high quality sweet stout. Medium / full body with quite a bit of carbonation that is very non-intrusive to the flavors. Taste starts with milk chocolate, toffee, caramel, light bits of earthiness. For the combination on the taste I am reminded of a cross between a top quality scotch ale with chocolate given a Trappist twist. The finish adds some spiciness that seems to be from hops. Oddly enough with as rich and full flavored as this is the finish is crisp. It comes across incredible. There is a small lingering toffee taste left in the mouth. You could never tell this is 9.2% except for the effect it leaves, it is hidden exceptionally well. This is a top beer in my book.

it’s a fine specimen to behold: a lightly yeasted pour the color of dried tobacco, the warm ochre of a martian twilight, the color of dough and the dirty-gold of a back-lit morrel mushroom. here’s another one of those desparately expensive beers where with every sip you feel the meter running--like a san francisco taxi ride. you say: "i smell red licorice and spanish boot leather", and take a sip. bam. that’s fifty cents worth. you ask yourself: "is it woody and sweet and delightful?" and take another sip. bam again, a buck. "yes, yes, it IS!" you slurp it loudly and languorously over the tongue like the wine tasters do-- to savor every molecule of encapsulated trappist wisdom-- and still you curse yourself for selfishly swallowing it. another dollar’s worth is gone... and so it goes. a tug of war to carefully catalogue the intricacies versus the overwhelming impulse to drain it away. amazing. where else will you smell cranberry and chocolate in the same sniff? it’s the very deffinition of complexity in a masterful libation: few essences are overbearing, and nearly any taste can be offered as a reasonable discriptor: mint and raisin? sure. haunting verisimilitudes weave in and out: "was that mustard and cheddar? hmmm, maybe... plum jam and peasant bread? yes. bourbon and lemon tea? honeycomb and cedarwood? yes. all of the above". peppery chunks of yeast settle out like buckshot; carbonation is the gently roiling air upon which the butterflys of flavor can play, this ale is milky textured and sweet with moderate bitterness. the alcohol dots the ’i’s and crosses the ’t’s, and ultimately crosses your eyes as well, and by the time you get to four dollars fifty cents worth, you’ve tossed aside the notes and given in to the hypnotic flow of flavors. sweet dreams.

Clearly one of the world’s great beers. Huge head due to bottle conditioning. A flaw in a sense, but it dissipates quickly. Very dark brown, opaque. An austere brew. The nose does not tell much. Smells like a spiced sugar cookie. Indeed, this buttery sugar cookie note is one of the key elements. This beer is definitely a sweet after-dinner treat! Vanilla notes strengthen the sugar cookie resemblance. Spicy notes of cloves and hops. Some fruits in this liquid cookie, but they’re hard to pinpoint--prunes, raisins, black cherries, perhaps figs as another suggests. The greatness of this beer is the simple and beautiful overall taste made up of myriad complexities.