Profiled by Ken Carman for Professor Goodales
The clarity was OK, though a tad hazy. Might be chill haze. Head decent. Color: light pale yellow… almost Bud like. No legs.
Nose sweet fruity, abbey yeast, a bit sweet, yeast dominant, pilsner malt-sense way in background.
Abbey yeast dominant in taste. Way too dominant. I understand having it way up front it defines the concept of an Abbey ale in America; though ironically not so much in Belgium; home to most Abbey ales. But this is so dominant it created an almost brassy cloy to the top of the mouth, nice alcohol/abv punch that’s there but not as abrasive or cloying as yeast. Here the brewer did a real good job. But there needs to be more here than what there is. This sub style tends to be a bit simplistic, but not so much as Sprecher’s take on it.
Mouth feel abbey yeast, light pils in the backgroud. Not much else.
Not impressive. A tad lighter than normal Tripel (or “Triple” as they insist on calling it) that needs tad more body and white candi for sense/taste. Overall this goes to balance. The Abbey-White Labs 530-like yeast sense is so dominant it’s hard to taste much else. The problem here is that abbey yeast has become a bit of a cliche’ and this has that taste out the wazoo, and except the slight hint of white candi sugar-like driven alcohol: nada. Needs more complexity, even for style which can be a bit simplistic sometimes. It’s like they decided to brew to the cliche’, but not the sub style.