AleSmith Stumblin Monk

An unclear orange beer with a small beige head. The aroma is lovely sweet combined with notes of oranges and peaches. The flavor is of a very well aged beer with notes of spices, oranges, and peach, leading to a dry finish with some notes of coriander. A great triple - the best non-Belgian Triple I’ve had.

Bottle - 1999 vintage... This beer rocks!... Cloudy, light yellow ale with a large, rocky, white head. Spicy, floral, fruity nose. Perfectly balanced and creamy with soft carbonation. Lengthy, spicy, fruity, dry finish. The two things I normally hate about tripels (cloying sweetness and stickiness) are absent from this one. World class ale! Bigtime props to eyedrinkale for pulling this one out of his extensive cellar to share!

1/5/05. Poured out of 750 mL bottle, sampled courtesy of Tom Nickel at O’Brien’s in San Diego, CA 1/5/05. Hazy tan head with a fruity pink magic marker aroma. Minty and sweet with a spiced menthol glow and bite. I always wanted to taste the pink marker as a kid, and now I basically have. And it’s pretty good, though this bottle hasn’t aged quite as beautifully as I’d have hoped. I remember it being better. Some bitterness and a little fluffy carbonation, but it’s almost gone. Long finish with nice fruitiness but not too much complexity. Some pineapple and fruit punch-like character. Not dry enough (although not overbearingly sweet by any stretch), and certainly not carbonated enough to stand up to the best Belgian tripels. Still, I really hope to try this again some day, if not in a well-aged bottle, then in a new one if they start to make it once more.

Thanks to Tom Nickel for breaking out this rare bottle. Although bottle conditioned and sampled in San Diego, I’d be very surprised to see how this stuff would be rated if anyone didn’t know it came from Alesmith. I thought it lost a lot of carbonation. Taste is sweet orange, ginger, coriander, candy sugars and light malts. Didn’t really hold up that well but the flavors are still prominant.

This tripel pours with a cloudy golden body with little head or lacing. It smells like a halls menthol cough drop. The flavor is slightly sweet and minty with a nice fruitiness and great spice notes. Medium bodied and very smooth.