St. Bernardus Abt 12 Special Edition

Formerly brewed at St. Bernard Brouwerij
Style: Abt/Quadrupel
Watou, Belgium

Bottle: Courtesy of punkrkr27. Great aroma of banana, candi sugar, grapes, plums, and a hint of yeast and alcohol. It pours a hazy amber with some sediment and a small off-white head. The flavor starts with banana, grape, raisin, and candi sugar. The finish has light alcohol and some faint bitterness. The carbonation is rather lively. I’ve never been as impressed as most with the original, but I found this to be very tasty. Within the group I sampled this with, I’d say I’m in the minority in preferring the SE over the original.

Clear dark brown body under a frothy off-white head - great lacing too. Intense dark plum malt and clean alcohol in the aroma. Big sweet flavor - plum, milk chocolate, raisin, and am intense grape. Above-average mouthfeel. The finish leaves you with some bitter hops and brown sugary coffee cake. Big rich flavors but in the end not overwhelming.

deep brown pour w/ a huge fluffy light tan head w/ some sparse lacing and visable carbonation.. hints of reds in the body. Aroma is well complex full of spices that I can’t quite place some definate alcohols light fruits definate belgian yeast notes some light breads. Palate is well coated lightly creamy. Flavor has a hot alcoholic finish, very sweet lots of carmels some bread notes very nice and easy to drink.

Dark copper body. Powdery thick off-white head. Very nice aroma. Complex plummy thick malts, sugary yeast, cereal, alcohol. Flavor follows with some unidentified light hops, sweet complex syrups and basement-like yeast, gourmet honeys. Possibly good ageability. Pretty darn good. I think I like it a tiny bit more than the regular. Perhaps the ease of pouring yeast in that version gets in the way, whereas I have a clean pour of this from the top of the bottle.

Take something good and try and improve it. Seems all too often the result is a hosed effort. This one was actually turned up to eleven or even twelve, special edition thankyouverymuch with a resultant success. That it isn’t HUGELY different is perhaps how it managed to work. A tad drier, ever so slightly more complex. And then other than that I found the last drop came far too soon for such a big beer.

This was my first macro brewed beer as I have just turned 21 so bear with me as I’am an ameture =). This was a very fine drink. Smooth and full of light fruity flavors like apple pear and apricot. There was also a bread like taste. It poured into my goblet with a thick beautiful head and the aroma was of fruit and something else but I cant quite put my finger on it. The palate was extreamly smooth though you can only sip on this drink not gulp and certainly not chug. This brew was full of wonderful flavors and has opened my eyes to a whole new world of beer. Screw anheiser busch the monks of belgium have got my full attention!

The color was a deep amber. The head was off-white, creamy, and fluffy. The aroma consisted of mostly an alcohol, citris smell. The flavor was very alcoholy and yeasty (granted this was getting near the bottom of the bottle). The palate was smooth. The finish was very warm.

Pours a dark amber. The head is thick, creamy, and tanish white. The aroma has the musty fruity smell of the trappists. Mostly grape and some caramel. The flavor is smooth, creamy, some alcohol, fruity esters, hints of port. The palate is smooth and creamy. The finish is warm and dry. Overall a good quad.