Westvleteren 8

I didn't want to put off this post any more for fear of letting the memory of this beer go to long to do it justice. Westvleteren is the final trappist brewery that I had yet to try. Due to it's lack of distribution in the US, or anywhere in the world for that matter, the only way to get it is to go to the abbey in Belgium, or find someone to ship it to you. For Christmas, my girlfriend Julia did just that, and had someone from Belgium ship bottles of both the 8 and the 12 to her. Not much is know about the abbey other than the huge reputation of their brews, both the 8 and 12 are the top rated for their styles on Beer Advocate and Rate Beer (the 8 is a dubble and the 12 is a tripel). Because of their reputation and the difficulty in getting them, they're considered the "holy grail" of beerdom. I was worried that the beer wouldn't live up to the hype, or I wouldn't like it, or I'd get a bad bottle. Fortunately this did not seem to be the case. I'm not sure how old the bottle even is, all I was told was that one of the bottles was at least a year old as the abbey only brews one style of beer at a time.

The beer poured a deep murky brown, like dark chocolate. It was strongly hazy, as can be expected with a bottle fermented beer. The head was airy and a light tan color, about a finger thick, and dissipated to 1/4 finger. After that the head stuck around for a while and left moderate lacing on the glass.

The aroma was strong, I noticed it even while pouring. There was a predominant fruit quality to it as well, some cherry and some apple in the scent. Underneath were smells of chocolate, roast, a hint of coffee, and other dark fruits. It's very similar to the smell I remember Westmalle having, but much stronger, and very sweet. There's also a harder to describe earthen quality to the smell, of old wood or clay pots.

The taste was not nearly as sweet as I expected from the smell. Chocolate is present along with cherry notes, underneath is apple cider and a touch of nutmeg. There's earthy flavors as well, with a hint of smokiness and a bit of wood. I was getting a slightly bready quality to it as well, like a rye or whole wheat bread. A nicely rounded bitterness lingers on the sides of the tongue. I detected a bit of dark fruit, possible plum as well. Despite it's relatively high strength (somewhere in the 8% range or higher), I didn't notice any alcohol in the flavor. The aftertaste is equally pleasant, with smoked wood and grain dominant in the mouth. The overall balance and complexity of this beer is amazing.

In the mouth, the first thing that jumps out about this beer is the strong, sharp carbonation. Perhaps overly so. It has a good medium body, giving it just the right amount of substance. There's a nice smooth coating on the mouth as well. Going down it has just a bit of warmth, both from the spice and the alcohol. It's not wet enough to be considered refreshing, but it's not really dry either.

The drinkability of this beer is just incredible. It's strength is not apparent in the taste, just in the after-effects. I have no desire at all to drink this one quickly, but I feel like it's a flavor I'd never get sick of. Absolutely a drink to savor and enjoy.

- Adam

Maredsous 8 Dubbel

Right now I'm working on my 3rd post today. The first 2 have been deleted as it's been so long since I had these beers, looking at my notes just isn't bringing back the experience for me, and I don't think I could do justice to the beers. Maredsous 8 stood out to me though, and my notes were quite ample. This beer was possibly the most complex I've ever tasted, each sip yielded a new flavor.

The beer is brewed by Duvel Moortgat, brewers of my all-time favorite, Duvel. Upon learning that they had additional lines of beer besides Duvel, I made a point of picking it out the next time I went over to State-Line. As a Dubbel, this beer is the same style as Westmalle Dubble, Achel Brune, Chimay Red, and Westvleteren 8... meaning it has some fierce competition to live up to.

The beer poured a dark brown color, and had a moderately sized off-white head. When held up to the light, I noticed a slight reddish tinge around the edges. Throughout the glass it had good retention and decent lacing as well.

The aroma contained a number of scents, starting with a nice combination of roast malt, coffee, cherries, and chocolate. Underneath there's hints of caramel, alcohol, biscuit, and apple. Needless to say, it's a complex aroma that just hints at the flavors that the beer contains.

At first the beer tasted strongly of coffee and dark chocolate. It had a sweetness to it, as well as a round bitterness at the back of the mouth. However, I also detected a fruity flavor underneath that I thought was cherry. There was a strong hop flavor on the sides of the tongue. I didn't notice much alcohol in it, but it did have a warming quality. The beer developed even more as I continued drinking, yielding flavors of roast, dark breads like pumpernickel, cider, and a wooden/earthy flavor that I quite enjoyed. It's hard to even describe how these flavors worked together to form this incredible beer.

I tried this beer in two different glasses, first was my Duvel glass, which I felt would be appropriate. However, after reading an article on glassware, I disagreed with Beer Advocate on their recommendation for drinking it out of a goblet style glass, so I tried it with my Pauwel Kwak stirrup. In the Duvel glass the beer felt very highly carbonated, and was light (almost airy) in the mouth. It was thinner in feel than I expected. I also noted that it was a little dry. I had read (can't remember where) that for beers with higher carbonation, a narrower glass is more appropriate. After trying it in the Kwak glass, I have to agree that this beer was better with a narrower glass. The main difference I noticed was that the beer didn't feel quite as light in the mouth. It was still light, but it had a more tangible quality to it that helped me appreciate the flavors more. I also noticed that the roast flavor came out more (roast what I'm not sure, but it was definitely roasted), and the chocolate flavor got stronger towards the end. Visually, it also left incredible lacing on the narrower glass.

All in all, the beer was highly enjoyable. However, I didn't feel like it would be a good beer to pound back. For one thing, it's 8% ABV, so it's too strong to drink end to end. More importantly though, the flavors are so complex and interesting that I felt it was really designed to sit down and enjoy sip by sip. Savor this one, take it slow, and it will be a wonderful experience.

- Adam

Westmalle Dubbel

I figured I might as well go ahead and finish up with the trappists. The final remaining brew I was able to get my hands on for this trip was Westmalle Dubbel. The brewery in the Westmalle abbey opened in 1836, but it wasn't until 1921 that they started selling it commercially. In addition to the brewery, the abbey also has a farm and a cheese making facility.

The beer's appearance is a deep reddish/purple color, kind of murky and slightly opaque. The head is tan but dissipates quickly and has no lacing.

The aroma is sweet. There's cherry and liquor scents. I think there's some chocolate as well.. maybe chocolate covered cherries. A very faint grassyness.

Taste is somewhat chocolatey. There's a mild cherry flavor as well. The beer is neither too sweet or too bitter. It's sweet on the tip of the tongue but I'm also getting a bit of alcohol in the flavor. The second bottle of this I had appears to be bad despite the freshness date of 2/26/10. There's a medicinal quality to it as well that's slightly unpleasant. Tastes like Vick's vapor rub smells.

The mouthfeel is thick and juicy on the tongue. It's a bit dry, but good. The first one I had was not very carbonated, but the second was overpoweringly so.

The drinkability of the beer was not too high. The first was so heavy that it was like a meal in itself. My second go at this beer was obviously bad, and I ended up pouring it down the sink after a few sips. I was severly dissapointed because this was one of my favorites of the entire outer banks trip. At some point I'll have to give this one another shot.

Actually what's most dissapointing is that this is the 2nd bad bottle of beer I've gotten from State Line in the last month or so. The first was Gulden Draak, which I've yet to review because I haven't had a decent sized portion of it that wasn't bad. I discovered that it was a bad bottle because they had it at their Belgium vs. North America tasting event and it was actually quite good. I don't think this was State Line's fault as the beer was clearly not expired, but I wish I knew how to avoid this in the future.

- Adam

Koningshoeven Dubble

As most of you have probably gathered, I hold a special place in my heart for the Trappist ales. Something about them really makes me feel like they should be better than other examples of the same style from a non-trappist brewery. I've also mentioned before that there are 6 Trappist breweries in Belgium: Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, and Westvleteren. Of these, I've gotten to try something from all of them but Westvleteren, which only bottles a limited amount per batch, and doesn't get exported to the US. However, I recently learned about a 7th trappist abbey, this one in the Netherlands. Over there, it's labeled as Le Trappe, but in the US it's imported as Koningshoeven. I picked up a bottle of the Dubbel, chosing it over their Tripel and Quadrupel. This is mostly simply because out of the beers that I've had, I've generally liked the Dubbels best.

One interesting thing I noticed about Koningshoeven is that for a period of 5 years they lost their status as a trappist brewery. This was due to the fact that they licensed their brewery to a limited liability company. However in 2005 a settlement was reached with the International Trappist Association, which allowed them to regain the trappist label.

The beer poured a deep brownish red, with a tan head. It started to dissipate at a moderate pace, but the last bit covering the beer held on and stuck around through most of the glass. There was pretty much no lacing on the glass as the beer was consumed.

The smell was a bit faint, and I was really having a difficult time picking anything in particular out. I definitely detected a cherry fruit scent, along with some sweet malty characteristics. Underneath this was a trace of alcohol. However, I did notice a slight chocolate smell as well.

The taste was domintated by chocolate and cherry at first. However, this changed a bit as I got through the first sips, and turned a little more to the sweetness of the malt. I noticed a bit of bitterness towards the back of my mouth. There was a warming sensation as I swallowed the beer. The brew didn't have very much of an aftertaste... in fact, less than I'm used to. However I did find there was a touch of bitterness that remained behind for a few moments along with a trace of alcohol.

The mouthfeel was fairly dominated by the carbonation. This is possibly one of the highest carbonated beers I've had. This threw me off a bit as I would tend to say the beer was a medium body drink, but the carbonation made it feel lighter than I though it actually was. I didn't notice it coating my mouth at all, which is something I've become more aware of lately. The one thing I noticed in particular is that as I swallowed, the beer was extremly tingly in my throat, and had an almost burning effect, but not painful or unpleasant, just unexpected.

I'm not sure what to make of the drinkability of this beer. It wasn't the best beer I've had, and seemed to be a little unbalanced towards the sweet side. I thought that personally the sweetness dominated a bit too much and I would get sick of it if I tried to have more than one glass. However, it was still tasty, I don't want to indicate that it was a bad drink. It was definitely way better than Orval. Overall, a good drink, but not great. I'm glad Dan was around to drink the other half of the 750 ml bottle, because I wouldn't have wanted to. At least now I've tried something from every Trappist you can get in the US without trading with individuals.

- Adam