St. Bernardus Abt 12

Brewed by St. Bernard Brouwerij
Style: Abt/Quadrupel
Watou, Belgium

11.2oz bottle poured into a Trappist glass. This is the 1st of the re-rates. I lost my personal list (something like 900 beers in addition to the ones I have in here.) Now I have the opportunity to re-rate some good ones. 100 percentile beer? Let’s just see about that! 12 pours dark brown with ruby tendencies and a beautiful fluffy head. The nose has yeast, bread and syrupy fruits. It smells silky like a truffle. The body is ultra smooth like with a milk-like feel. The carbonation is just right, not too light nor too heavy. The alcohol is beautifully integrated into the beer being neither hidden nor obnoxious. The taste is complex with plum, candi sugar, mild nuts and clove. The finish is warm and tender. Yup. It’s a 100 percentile alright.

11.2 oz. bottle from Total Wine in Norfolk (best before April 21, 2014). Muddy brown pour with a fizzy off-white head. Aroma of dark fruit, bready yeast, clove, and a hint of cinnamon. Complex flavor of raisin, plum, brown sugar, banana, and Belgian candi sugar. Moderate alcohol warming but it does not get in the way of the taste. Truly remarkable.

Pours dark brown with a thick off-white head that disappears quickly. Aroma of bready malts, dark fruits and cloves. Taste of dark cherry, raisins, spices, and a nice alcohol finish. Dry. Overall a delicious, complex beer.

A: Poured dark-brown, with almost ruby-red highlights in the light. Body is hazy in the deep color. Has a large, off-white head that diminishes to 1-finger, leaving very good clumps of lace all over the glass. S: Yeasty and bready, with cloves coming through quite evidently. T: Awesome flavor, as it’s moderately sweet with the ripe fruit and cloves, and finishing with a slight alcohol warmth - and this really IS slight, for a 10.5% ABV... could’ve fooled me! M: Medium-bodied and a creamy texture, with the typical fizzy carbonation that seems to be there with most St. Bernardus beers. D: An excellent quad that is scaringly drinkable... just a perfect beer to sip on through the night. Of course you wouldn’t want to have two or three, but that’s the kind of beer it is, right? Just awesome.

Had this at Bulldog on tap. A delicious beer. Dark brown with a decent head. A solid quad; I like this better than the rochefort 10, but not as much as the westvleteren 12. I’ll add notes if/when I find where I wrote them...

750ml bottle. This beer poured a dark amber color and formed an off white sudsy head that left circular lace. Aroma of figs, dark fruits, alcohol, sugar, various spices and multiple malts. The taste is vastly complex, with notes of malt, banana, spice, yeast, dates, raisins, figs. The alcohol, along with the hops, is only slightly noticeable. The body is thick and silky smooth. Another example of a fine Belgian ale.

Great looking dark brown beer, smooth looking head and soft malty aroma. This beer has a fine sweet-malty smell with refined touches of dried raisins and a great malty roundness. aftertaste is warming and complex

09 bottle Pours a hazy golden brown with a large creamy head that lingers. A sweet and mellow fruit nose followed by a distinct alcohol note. I’m afraid that I may not be treating this newly bottled beer fairly as it was opened immediately after drinking my first Westy 12 - a bottle that was at least a year and a half old, and a Three Philosophers that was a year old. The St. Bern seems shallow and one dimensional by comparison with the two beers that preceded. Malt and grain flavors dominate with some fruity prune flavors mingling with molasses in the mid palate. It’s a good dry finish, but doesn’t leave me any lingering flavors to remind me of something new. Looking back, I probably should have pulled one from the cellar with a little age on it for this rating. I’ll return for a re-rate if I discover something different in my next taste of this one.