St. Bernardus Abt 12

Brewed by St. Bernard Brouwerij
Style: Abt/Quadrupel
Watou, Belgium

Big bottle. Lovely hazy dark brown colour with a long lasting light brown creamy head. Nice round sweet spiced malty, nutty and fruity flavour with some yeast to it. Great complex mouthfeel! Yummy spicy, sweet and bit bitter long lasting aftertaste. A very very great tasting Belgian abt!

A Mes rate: 33cl bottle from Selfridges. Wow! How have I missed rating one of my top brews of all time? I guess I just always presumed it was rated already. This is nothing short of awesome. The aroma is pretty much as good as anything I have had. Creamy malts, caramel, banana and bags of vanilla. Some raisin and bread and some other fruits in there too. Mellow but absolutely gorgeous. Appearance is nothing short of perfection. On the brown side of mahogany, almost opaque and with a very long lasting tan coloured head. Great lacing too. As you tip the glass it leaves behind a solid covering. Flavour is equally excellent. Candy sugar, banana bread and vanilla with lashings of alcohol that may understandably be too much for some. Sweet, rich and complex but wonderfully smooth and silky. Yum yum yum f**king yum!!! Amazing length but the alcohol shows maybe just a tad too much at the finish. But hey come on it is a 10.5% beer. Chunky, complex and simply wonderful. I have drained my glass in the time it took me to write this. Gutted it has gone. How thankful am I that I can get this regularly!

Intense aroma of hops, chocolate, yeast, porto and fruit (apple, raisins). Very full bodied. Sweet, malty taste with porto, some fruitiness and a alcohol burn. A bit tart. The aroma is more intense than the flavor. Nevertheless a complex and delicious beer, well worth looking for.

(Bottle) Pours a cloudy brown color with a thick beige head. Quite an impressive looking beer. Great flavor with a creamy finish and bountiful complexity make this brew quite a treat.

750ml bottle-pours a big fizzy, foamy tan head that laces with hazy red-brown color and effervescence. Aroma is fruit-cherry, sour esters, malt. Taste is medium malt, fruit, sweet, alcohol-in line with 10%abv. Nutty, secondary hops. Good effervescence. Good sipping beer.

Dark brown color, heavy sweet malty aroma and taste, full body, long sweet light alcoholic finish.

Really splendid beer. Cloudy brown with limited head. Very sophisticated taste with hints of caramel, wood, vanilla, citrus. Wonderful palate that feels great in your mouth.

Rerate 4/23/2004: best by 2004 bottle. Pours a nice medium to dark brown with a beautiful off-white thick lacing head. Aroma is rich, malty and full of bready Belgian yeast. Flavor is much to suit, sweet, complex, and smooth. Not quite Westy, but a great beer for its price. 3/21/2003: Thick dark murky body with a good layer of foam on top. Sweet bready Belgian yeast aroma with no alcoholic notes. Highly carbonated mouthfeel that when fading reveals the sweet, complex malty goodness lying beneath. Decent fruit and wood flavors are evident. This is a very good, respectable Belgian ale with a pleasant, dry, candi-sugar finish.