21st Amendment Monks Blood

21st Amendment Brewery
Brewed at Cold Spring Brewery
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
San Francisco, California USA

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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On tap at River Rock Taphouse. Aroma is effervescent berry. Flavor has the same with Belgian sugar and yeast. Very unique and enjoyable beer. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

On tap at River Rock Tap House with Tim. Nice color; extremely effervescent.

A draft pour at The Local Beer Bar in Eureka, CA. Pours a dark red amber with a good sized tan head. Nose of caramel malts and ripe fruit. Medium in body with mild carbonation and creamy mouthfeel. Flavor is medium dark fruit with some wood notes. There are floral hops present. This gets more complex as it warms and the finish moves from sweet chocolate to bitter. Lots going on here. Delicious stuff.

Can. Aroma of alcohol, candied fruit, and sugar. Flavor is sweet and heavy, with vanilla, spices, and more dark fruit. Definitely for sippin’ but pretty good. Went to a tasting by these guys at Full Throttle bottles, and they made a "beer float" with this and vanilla ice cream. It was actually pretty good, I highly recommend it as a nice dessert at the end of the night.

Snifter from can. Solid malt and alcohol. App: medium-dark, hazy brown with a small tan head. T: dark fruit on the front, dark fruit on the back and a lingering alcohol aftertaste. P: bubbly and smooth.

Poured into a Tulip glass from the can. This has a nice head on it. Good lacing and quite dark. Aroma is sweet and malty. Flavor is sweet, and malty. The cinnamon really comes through this beer from start to finish. I also notice vanilla as others have pointed out, though it could be related to the cinnamon. Delicious beer.

Pretty good beer. There’s a lot of unique and complex favors going on with this beer.

A friend of mine from work said I should rate a beer and finally after a few months of deciding which beer to rate, my friend brought me a unique beer not easily found in our brewery filled state of Colorado. Monks Blood, Brewed by 21st amendment brewery in Cold Springs, Minnesota cans this Belgian style dark beer. You can tell the company has a passion for their beer by the amount of work put into the design itself, wrapped in old time writing a story is read about how the recipe itself was made. Upon first crack and pour of this very dark beer from the can, the smell of the beer hits faster than expected and reminds you of a typical dark Belgian ale. The first sip though comes strong with the oak chips it’s brewed with, and at the tail end you get the typical bite that cinnamon provides. Upon further enjoyment, the taste of vanilla carries through each sip and provides for a different layer of flavor within the beer. The beer is not too heavy as some dark Belgians can be, and would be enjoyable at just about anytime. As with any beer it should be enjoyed in a pint glass to get your nose fully into the goodness. Thanks to Dan for the hook up and rate beer for this awesome way to share beers!

Can from Whole Foods in Durham. Pours a pretty murky bright reddish brown with a dark beige, nearly tan head. Nose of sweet oak, vanilla, dubbel-like malt, and some cinnamon. Smells sweet. Also some quad-like fig and date. Taste adds sweetness and palate rounds out some pleasant bitter characteristics as well. A bit astringent, but in kind of a nice way.

UPDATED: APR 2, 2012 "At one point in my life I wanted to be a monk. I’ve decided that everyone has had the monk fantasy at some point in their life. What isn’t there to love about it? Your day to day life is all planned: you wake up, do some chants, pray a lot, commune with the sacred, work in a garden, if you’re in a dream monastery you may even make some beer. You don’t have to worry about women, because you don’t have sex. You can’t miss a thing you haven’t had, right? Well, beside the whole intercourse thing, being a monk is probably pretty awesome. Anyway, onward to the beer at hand, Monks Blood is like a sinner’s idealized version of life in the monastery wherein you get all the benefits of monastic life and break some rules. What it misses, though is that part of what makes ‘Monk Time’ so awesome is that you have all the rules set out for you and you follow them. You are not a separate, autonomous entity, rather you are one with God and all that entails, whether it be your ancient beer recipe given to you by God, your morning chants, your pea garden or whatever. So if you take this beer as an idealized, sinful version of a Belgian-strong ale, you are in for a boozy, drinkable, yet decadent treat, but don’t expect it to be the disciplined and refined fruit of the holy life. " -The Wife’s Review