Chimay Triple / Blanche (White)

Brewed by Chimay
Style: Abbey Tripel
Baileux, Belgium

Bottle. I smelled notes of citrus, yeast, and slight hops. Poured a gorgeous cloudy unfiltered golden color. Tasted acidic lemon, bread, cereal, and a slight hop finish. Active carbonation on the palate with the tingling sensation on the way down. This is one of my favorite abbey tripels, and in my opinion is the best offering from Chimay.

750 mL bottle from my local Farm Fresh (purchased November 2008, enjoyed 1 year later). Golden yellowish-orange pour with a fizzy off-white head. Aroma of bready yeast and a hint of Belgian candi sweetness. The first thing I notice about the taste is just how dry this is. I also pick up on a honey sweetness mixed with a flowery bitterness from the hops. A very good tripel.

It’s always nice to open a beer with a real cork. But the gentle plop was just the beginning. It was obvious that the bottle contained sediments, but a gentle pour gave an almost clear beer in a orange/honey shade, with lots of bubbles and a light white foam. The aroma was complex with notes of mandarin, hobs, and ginger/muscat notes. The taste had a sweet mandarin and marcipan taste complimentet with light bitter hops and a refreshing acidity. Nice fill in the mouth and a good lasting bittersweet aftertaste.

bottle- pours golden honey color with nice creamy, off-white head. What I noticed the most right off the bat was the alcohol in the nose with respect to the bleu and the rouge, it was much stronger. The aroma was of spicy, bready apricot. The taste was raisin and orange with only the faintest note of...(liquorice?). The finish was a bit too bitter for my taste and I could really taste the alcohol. Having said that I can appreciate the quality but I prefer bleu.

75cl corked and wired bottle. Pours a cloudy amber with a huge white head with great retention and decent lacing. Very nice looking beer. Aroma is of grapefruit and coriander. Medium-bodied Belgian tripel with ok, but not really substantial mouth feel. Medium carbonation. Taste of herbal spices, yeast and, again, coriander - much, much less sweet than the aroma indicated. Sweet and sour finish, spicy herbal after taste. More sessionable than many other Belgian tripels (Grimbergen, for one, comes to mind), agreeably non-sweetish. And no perfume either! Well-balanced, smooth and highly drinkable brew, with a barely noticeable higher abv.

Pours hazy light yellow. The aroma is yeasty and malty, bready undertones. With the head rising the aroma of hops comes to life and completes a great aroma. Has a barley bitter yeast taste that is washed down with a malty but hop tinged fall on to the palate.

Once I cracked the beer open, I got a very pungent smell of yeast and sweetness. This was a very misleading start for the beer. In the glass, the beer had a very murky, translucent appearance. It had a golden appearance (it looked just as expensive as it is) with a white-ish head. But, the head was very small signifying a lighter beer (EDIT: I poured a glass a couple days later in a pilsner glass and the head was so big that I only poured 70% of the glass out and the head overflowed). The carbonation is also pretty consistent within the beer but it doesn’t form into a head - it just falls up and down within the beer. As for the taste, Chimay White starts off very sharp. It hits you right off the bat with the taste of alcohol and the roasted barley and yeast. It eventually mellows out with the smoothness of the brew but as you swallow it, the bitterness kicks in again, just like most other European beers. This was not nearly as fruity as any of the other Chimay brews but it did have a slight citrus bite. In terms of texture, the beer flowed from bitter, to smooth, to bitter again - a very interesting curve in the palate.

hazy golden ale with subtle fresh aroma. Fresh fruity flavour. Bitter aftertaste. Very drinkable, cant feel the ABVs.