Saint Somewhere Lectio Divina

Brewed by Saint Somewhere Brewing Company
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Tarpon Springs, Florida USA

[2414-20090801] Bottle. Toasted generic fruit aroma. Hazy, dark brown body with a quick bubbly off-white head. Tangy citrus juice flavour has tons of roasted malt. Medium body has a bit of a tang to it. Interesting to try.
(w/ others @ BCTC; Cooperstown, NY)

Bottle shared with Blankboy, Hogtown Harry, and Garthicus, blankboy’s bottle. Very fresh, yeasty, fruity, candy sugar aroma. Neat hazy orange, small white head. Taste is fresh, yeasty, fruity, and sweet. Almost like a kicked up Kool Aid from Belgium. Not too bad really, simple but enjoyable.

Courtesy of artusory

Bottle: The aroma is yeasty along with some plastic notes and faint sour apple. It pours a hazy amber with a small white head. The flavor is sweet and yeasty up front with some faint sour apple in the background. The finish has some faint floral bitternes. Light-medium bodied with soft carbonation.

Pours to a very ruby red body with a tall creamy off-white head. The aroma is very fruity with a nice white grape and wine barrel. The flavor has a ton of fruity white grapes and a nice lightly caramelized malt. Sweet but refreshing. The palate is not alcoholic at all.

Bottle courtesy of solan and shared by Sparky27 at hellbilly*s holiday tasting. Fruity orange carbinated aroma on the snoot. Amber body with tan head. Fruity orange flavor with some citric acid and dry and tart on palate. Good brew. Thanks Eric.

25 oz bottle, via SoLan and TheCheeseMan. Pours a clear bright copper body with a fizzy one finger off-white head that faded to a thin film. The nose is fruity with a crisp Macintosh apple juice focus. Some yeast, syrupy malt, light alcohol, and a touch of white pepper. The flavor is sweet fruity malt with a good bit of peppery alcohol, light brown sugar, and some yeastiness. Mouthfeel is fairly thick and viscous with some sticky residual sugars. Fizzy, slightly prickly carbonation. Overall, this was decent, but I think it was pretty lacking in complexity and subtlety. Big and heavy, but not distinctive.

750mL bottle, courtesy of artusory. Thanks, Ryan! Pours a hazy, bright orange color; perimeter of off-white bubbles at the edges. Very pleasant aroma, showing esters and chewy bananas and Belgian sugars; soft and creamy nose. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: red fruit, bananas, and chewy esters; solid chewiness and plenty of sugar, but resists being sticky sweet; good yeast character, with a medium, yeasty and vanilla finish. Tasty stuff.

Likely Batch 1; Sampled January 2008
Cork & cage where mis-sized for this bottle, but it pops out with a carbonated pop. Pours with an almost two-finger thick, light tan colored head. The beer is a hazy, reddish-orange tinted, amber color, which has a hazy, orangish copper hue to it when held up to the light. The aroma is a nice mix of tart / sweet fruit notes, crushed grain and yeast-derived spice character. Aromas of ripe, yet tart plums, starfruit and green apples are joined by spice notes of mature, dried ginger, cloves, touches of wild flowers and some grassy notes. The finish, if you dig for it has quite a substantial malt aroma of soda crackers, fresh cracked grain and an appetizing whole grain note. The aroma is quite fruit dominated, but it happens to be a nice mix of tart and sweet notes that makes it quite inviting.

The carbonation is perhaps on the low side for a Belgian ale, but it is still here and provides a soft prickle to the tongue. My first impression is that the beer is sweet and fruity tasting, especially in the finish. The carbonation provides a bit of a pepper-like carbonic bit, which melds nicely with the soft yeast spiciness; spice notes of clove, perhaps a touch of sweet, young ginger and hints of cardamom are what is most noticeable. The fruit flavors taste of ripe plums (tart & sweet, but more sweet than was in the aroma), raisins and fresh red grapes. This is quite light feeling; it has a low-medium heft to it that is perfectly dialed in for a Belgian-styled beer of this strength (at least to my palate). Such an easy drinking beer, but it still has a flavor presence that makes it a pleasure to drink. The second pour pics up a bit more sediment, which provides a nice yeasty / fermented bread-like character to the brew, while softening the fruit notes just a touch.

This is very different than any other Abbey ale I can remember having. It is much lighter, tastes more vibrantly of fresh fruit and just plain has a different flavor / malt profile. It is sort of somewhere between a Tripel and Dubbel in its malt profile (darker than a Tripel, but definitely lighter than a Dubbel); much more rounded malt character than a Tripel, but not nearly the dark, concentrated fruit character found in a Dubbel. It could certainly use a bit more carbonation (it is carbonated though), but it is a very interesting beer, that is also quite tasty. This beer does not bowl one over with it’s flavors, yet it is light, pretty darn easy drinking and has a ton of nuanced flavor components that just make this an enjoyable experience. This is definitely one of those beers that you have to sample a full serving of though; while good at first, it was not until I had worked my way through a third of the bottle that I really started to appreciate this beer. I can’t wait to sample more of these brews.