St. Bernardus Tripel

Bottle. Pours a hazy amber brown body with a yellow exploding head. Huge fruity esters. Plum, toffee, and a light caramel apple tone. Dates with spicy yeast accents and lush etoh warming. This ale is rather divine.

Years ago this is the beer that started my love affair with the tripel style. Pours a sunny hazy blonde color with a thick luxurious head that doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon. As I drink the beer a very thick lace is left on the glass. Aromas of fresh baked baguette, good yeasty spiciness, some hay, and some lemon rind. The flavor reminds me at first of a very good pilsner with the nice mildly spicy hoppiness and the bready bright lightly salty malt character. The flavor turns more complex in a hurry though with some light banana notes some mild sweetness, some spiciness, with some minerally character (the good kind) . There are some citrusy lemony flavors both in a raw lemon and lemon candy kind of way that is not to say that the beer is particularly sour, far from it. The alcohol is really nice well nuanced and mild. What a delicious beer. Exemplary within the style.

Slightly hazy dark yellow with a thick frothy white head. Wonderful sweet aroma of citrus, banana and vanilla. Taste has light sweetness, medium bitterness and has a slightly sour finish. Quite some carbonation and a creamy texture. Good beer.

Cork and cage bottle. This one was a gusher! Hazy golden pour with a large foamy white head. Aroma is yeast, fruity, spiced, citrus. Flavor is very fruity, spicy, yeast, citrus, white pepper. Bubbly mouthfeel.

Dark yellow pour with lots of chunks. Giant white head is speckled like cinnamon. Smells faintly of banana and citrus. Very spicy. Fruit flavor. Finish is thick and warm.

This is decent, but a rather disappointing tripel that I find rather characterless, bland, and dry. It is bright gold, very clear before the sediment makes it hazy. A huge white head shrinks steadily but quickly to a lasting, thin wispy top. It produces a little uneven, foamy lace. The aroma is a lot of grain with light raisin, mineral, bread crust, mineral, a hint of pear and hay, somewhat resembling a pale bock. The taste is up front pear and hay with mineral, slightly raisiny but mostly dry. It soon becomes drier in alcohol with a hint of lemon pulp, but all thin and dry. The finish and aftertaste are dry and thin, tasting of fruit candy without the sweetness. It is one-dimensional and rather bland.

Bottle from 2002. Pours a hazy orange color with a small white head. Has a fruity spicy yeasty aroma. Sweetish fruity malty spicy yeasty flavor. Has a fruity malty spicy yeasty finish.

Bottle courtesy of Fratto. First off, huge head response. Bright orange color with chunks of yeast galore. Lovely aroma of sweet fruit, yeast and a little bit of spice. Tastes of dry fruit, very poignant. Finish loses some of it’s luster but remains an overall very tasty tripel.