Bluegrass Wormy Trip

Brewed by Bluegrass Brewing Company
Style: Abbey Tripel
Louisville, Kentucky USA

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

Samples at a BBC tasting at Party Town. Pours a slightly hazy dark golden color with the smallest white film. It actually looks like cider. The aroma is very fruity; pineapple, tropical, candy like sweetness with just a touch of herbs and spices. The flavor has more fruitiness and sweetness, but adds some bitterness to the finish. There is even a little tingle on the tongue (maybe from the wormwood?). Medium bodied, dry. This was not my favorite beer of the evening, but an interesting change of pace.

11/25/2009: BBC Wormy Trip... Aroma: Definitely smells like a Trippel - light candy sugar; cotton candy notes; tropical fruits and pineapple; faint spicy notes. Appearance: Color of apple juice/cider, transparent; rush of fine carbonation bubbles; frothy off-white crown, lasting; airy foam lacing. Flavor: Bright; sour and bitter (like grapefruit peel/pithe) in the middle to the finish that lasts in the after taste; lightly sweet in the front; slightly medicinal overall. Palate: Medium-bodied; smooth; mild carbonation. Overall: Very distinct, yet hard to describe.

Growler fill (draught; 11% ABV) from Party Town in Florence, Kentucky. Rating #5 for this beer.

10th October 2008. GABF. Clear gold beer. Very aromatic and with an unusual herbal spicy flavour which I presume the wormwood imparts. A dry finish. Off the beaten track and nice!

From the Jug at the GABF Colorado Convention Center, Denver 11/10/2008 Some spiced aroma. Golden coloured and very strong in alcohol with a little dryness in a crisp and bitter malt finish.

Draught - Pours a clear golden body with a medium white head. Aroma of absinthe, ginger, melon, and clove. Flavor of candi sugar, wormwood, and grass.

Sampled GABF 2008
This beer is brilliantly clear and is a very pale, gold color. It is topped by a thin, pale head that only forms a ring around the edges of my glass. The aroma is an interesting mix of clover, light banana notes, honey-like grain (but with an herbal honey edge), sweet cotton candy notes and some fruity, honeydew melon aromas.

The beer is sweet tasting, but only lightly so and it seems that the alcohol actually contributes to the perceived sweetness. Light honey flavor combine with a very light herbal character reminiscent of mint and rosemary. The beer is fairly bitter and this definitely lingers for quite some time in the finish (this last is likely the wormwood as I have heard that it is intensely bitter). There is a touch of grassy flavors as well as a clean grain character. This has captured the heft of a Tripel well as it is fairly light, almost quaffable even, but there is a bit of heft to it.

I really like the clean bitterness that this beer has, it is only lightly herbal in flavor though and I like that there is not much in the way of astringency. This is definitely good; some part of me wishes the wormwood character was more expressive, just so I could get a better sense of it, but it is really easy to overdo and honestly is a perfect, subtle contributor to this beers flavor profile. The flavor is a touch too clean, as it could use a touch more fermentation character.