Southern Tier Tripel

Brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company
Style: Abbey Tripel
Lakewood, New York USA

Light Belgian yeasty aroma. Sweet butterscotch, light toffee. Mild fruity hops but very mild. Dark golden amber with a bit of haze. Light off-white lacing head. Medium watery body with medium mild carbonation. Smooth drinking. Starts with medium malty sweetness, biscuit and neutral fruitiness. Dull dusty yeastiness and some light fruity farmhouse funk. Mild alcohol warming with very little bitterness. Finish is watery with dusty graina dn saccharin sweetness. Dry nutty after.

Murky bronze orange in color with a foamy white head. Sweet metallic citrus aroma. Sour citrus flavor finished a tangy malt.

Bomber. Clear and freshly polished bronze in color with fizz rising to feed a whipped, frothy white head. Easy sweet aroma of coriander and musty basements gets things going, complimented by lemon tainted buttermilk pancake mix, some steel reserves and dry orange peel backed over baguettes. Big flavorful quest brings out chewy vanilla graham pudding, like flavor, like substance. Dry, hot tongue flair from the get-go. Baguettes with rose hips and a lavender, freesia sense. Buttery lemon grass with dynamic, doughy croissants. Great carbonation levels and built to hold up over time, but perhaps the pilsener malt comes out a little too strongly in its present state. Thick canola oil infused with aged coriander seed lends to a harsh buttery bite in the end. Quite clean and quite bitter, elevating this one to the more massive end of the tripel spectrum. Finish digresses only slightly with cackled white pepper and a touch of ethanol.

If this is the southern tier I prefer the nothern spere, one word: drainpour. The monks are rolling over in their graves. Smelled moldy. It did not even improve when it got colder and I was hot from an unyeilding heat. It even smelled bad, but looked good. Like picture perfect, would make a nice layout photo.

Very crystal clear gold body - what’s the deal here, I’m expectng something cloudy, bottle conditioned, less filtered. Oh well, we drink it anyway. Aroma is floral, herbal and sweet, light hops. Taste is thin and carbonated, malts are very light and candy sweet. Some honey and summer fruit (melons). Eh, this wasn’t all that engaging.

Light white head initially covers the ridiculously clear pale golden hue. Quite thin from this aggressive filtration, lacking texture and the carbonation that is initially fizzy quickly becomes tame and underwhelming. The nose offers an aptly appointed soft alcohol dose that is quickly reached upon by perfumey coriander leaves and gentle citrus flavours. Rather low maltiness feels grainy and sweet, though not in a crisp pilsner way, the beer remains sweet and spicy, floral and herbal.

Any first impressions?
-An uberfiltered clear golden is barely covered by a sheet of head.
-Cereal crackers and a lavender/orange blossom-like floral character surprise the nostrils.
-Alcohol heat and peppery, herbal hops dominate the dry cereals.
-A rather frail body is barely woken up by the tiny, sparse bubbling.

What if you dig deeper?
-Maltiness is very shy, and carbonation isn’t energetic enough for the style.
-The fruitiness of honeymelon, oranges and spicy coriander attempts to keep things interesting.
-This simple flavor profile is not necessarily Belgian; even as an American interpretation of a Tripel, it doesn’t succeed, imho.

Bottle; no date.

12oz bottle. Golden color. no head. Strong spicy flavor with some honey and orange in there.