Profile by Maria Devan
Middle Ages Tripel Crown. Another good beer from them.
Pours hazy yellow with a slight orange blush. The color is the color of ripe apricot. So many tripels look just like this with a perfect stream of bubbles that rises form the center. White head in the tasting glass I cant’ speak to it. Fruity nose with lots of earth.
Nose is fragrant with wheat and with spice. Pear. Clove is demure and perfumey and there is coriander. No actual citrus on this nose but the ringwood yeast is tangy and shows you that element. Sweaty, vibrant No alcohol on the nose. The beer is light like a soft sweet little punch.
No real biting carbonation despite the stream of bubble you can make out through the haze. Still, it drinks bready from wheat and very creamy . Esters from yeast are crisp like banana peel. Not overly ripe banana that smells like bubblegum. Spice clove and a good hoppy finish. Bitterness reveals a light floral and the soft pear as the earth that was so deep literally evaporates on your palate to reveal a soft alcohol presence that has no sting at all. A mouthfeel that is deceptively light.
Outstanding.
4.5
Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”
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Maria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is a great beer writer. That’s Maria in the middle. The other two are not, but they are lucky to have her as a friend.