Westmalle Tripel

Brewed by Brouwerij der Trappisten van Westmalle
Style: Abbey Tripel
Malle, Belgium

Golden straw in color maybe a slight brown tinge, big flakes of sediment float everywhere, a good sized white cap floats on top that had phenomenal retention, very nice looking beer. Yeast and apples, lots of apples fill the nose, the aroma over all is soft and smooth maybe a touch of sourness is in the back ground and on big deep inhales I can detect a touch of dish soap. Sour bitter wood and yeast comprise most of the flavor and I can detect cherry in the finish, the cherry seems out of place. The after taste is flowery and bitter. This is a good beer and highly enjoyable but for a triple and the reputation it has I was slightly disappointed.

white big full head, Golden and clear, the perfect looking beer! caramel, citrus, herbs, banana are terms i would use to describe the excelent taste. I think it tastes sweet en bitter equally. medium body, medium body, fizzy, and light bitter finish. i can not believe they sell this in our supermarkets!

I liked the spiciness throughout. the flavor is dry but not very bitter. alcohol is present but not overly so. lots of yeast, tastes very typically Belgian. Good, but I wasn’t wowed like I was expecting to be.

Pours a nice golden colour, made hazy by yeast. Great small bubble lace head, which leads to amazing mouth feel. Slight and tasty bitter hops in the front with a fruity and mild finish. Love trappist beers.

Pours out a hazy golden apperance with a really nice fluffy white head..slight hoppy bitterness with a nice fruity aroma..has a nice soft mouthfull..this is a wonderfull well balanced trappist beer...enjoy

Very foamy head..full of complex flavor consisting of belgian sugars and fruit spices. Excellent tripel!

Very foamy and an uneven head, beautiful smell of banana and citrus. Warming but also fresh, little too hoppy for my taste.

***May 06 / 08 K, so I’m chugging back a 2 yr+ cellared bottle... man, this has really mellowed. It’s to the point now where I could drop this back in mere minutes. Mild flavoured as well as in the aroma dep’t. The harshness of the yeast has really dissapated. Still quite dry and tart (or is that tannic?). Nothing much has change except for the mellowing effect and the fact that now I could chug this. Got another one for the long term cellar experiment. Upped Appearance rating. Great pour, super clear with the cellaring and the concrete sediment on the bottom of the bottle, great effervecance, lacing and incredible retention.... nearing perfection - serious.

***Jan 25 ’07: Grade bumped up from 3.5. After having a few of these in the last couple of days, the Belgium Tripels (or at least this one) have started to win me over. I’ll have to add apples to the aroma list; cinammon to the taste list; mouthfeel - great swish, good initial hard bitter attack and a softer bitter aftertaste that previously noted. Also I think there is also a slight nutty aftertaste too.

***Re-review July 13, 2006: Way way better this time around. Here’s the improvements/modifications to the original review: Colour leaning to the orange side and there is a freaking ton of sediment that is small and white leaving a pile at the bottom of my glass. Aroma is very present and quite spicy with the same yeast and a bunch of sweetness (maybe that crummy white grape juice from Welch’s). Taste is pretty strong: Lots of bold spiciness, lots of yeast and some things that I have no idea what they are. This time, I love the mouthfeel, although it’s no easy ride: the harsh yeast, spices and bitterness blend together to create a slight sweet start and a dry finish with a neverending hard bitter aftertaste. The whole time I want to say that I can really notice the alcohol, but it is just the harshness of this beer until the aftertaste - that’s where I finally know. Man, This is a pretty harsh beer that’s really drinkable.....don’t really like it but really like it.?.?.?.?.?.?

Feb 5, 2006: The excitement of this beer vanished the second I tasted it. Great looking hazy yellow and poured up a really thick head which stuck around quite long. Aroma was a bit sour but mainly apricots and yeast. A little bit of light brown sediment remained (almost like really crappy milk chocolate in colour - I’m not saying this was a bad think tho..). Suprisingly sour in taste, which was quite terrible, this is unquestionabally the worst Trapist beer I’ve ever had. The more I drank, thoughts of pouring it out crept in my mind (total sacrilege!!!). We got his directly form Belguim about 2 weeks ago...it is possible we got bad bottles despite the expiry date being 22/12/07.The Dubbel was better. Extremely dissapointing. Need a bottle from another batch to confirm horrible review.