Chouffe Houblon Dobbelen IPA Tripel

75 cl bottle. Amazing pour - cloudy golden color with a huge fluffy white head with significant lacing and retention. Pretty much sits on the beer until almost the last sip. Aroma is a cross between the malty fruitiness of a tripel and the aromatic hops of an IPA - also with some doughy/yeasty and spice notes. Taste is very interesting, and complex. As you would imagine from a marriage between and IPA and a Tripel. Starts off with the classic Tripel taste. Dry champagne/chardonay like fruitiness and doughy/bready yeastiness. Citrus taste of the Saaz hops adds to the fruity malt notes. Hops really come through in the finish as the Tomahawk and the Amarillo work together to leave a nice dry bitter finish. Really a unique taste! Carbonation is pinpoint and plentiful and the beer has a nice medium body mouthfeel. All in all a wonderful beer. Pretty much what you would expect from the description but the complexities cant truly be imagined without a taste!

Rating #450. Tap @ Monk’s Cafe, Philadelphia - pours a cloudy golden color with a large, lacy white head. Aroma is bread notes, banana, clove, and citrus hops, a very enticing prelude to the beer. The taste is incredibly unique - they really managed to marry the best bits of a tripel (smooth, banana/clove/bread/spice) with enough of an aftertaste of Citrus hops to keep it interesting. Fabulous beer that I can’t wait to have again.

Draught at The Trappist in Oakland. Pours cloudy yellow with a large fluffy white head. Aroma is a nice mixture of fresh citrus hops, yeast, spices, and malt that’s mainly bread and some light citrus-ish fruitiness. Flavor is fairly strong but flavorful hops up front, mellowing slightly to a dry, yeasty, tart/fruity, and somewhat spiced tripel, but finishing with quite a few hops also. As advertised, it’s a hopped tripel, but it’s done very well. Somewhat less hopping would probably have brought out more complexity, but would’ve also made it less unique. Definitely worth seeking out if you like both American-style and Belgian-style beers.

Wow...what to say negative about this? Beer pours with huge head with lacing stuck all over the glass. The smell of saaz hops leaps from the glass along with honey. Flavor is a wonderful fruity malts, perfect level of spices and a wonderful blend of funky saaz hops and other more bitter hops. Sweet, but not overly so, bitter enough to satisfy the american hopheads but not enough to drowned out the wonderful tripel underneath. Smooth mouthfeel with perfect level of carbonation. Really, really good.

Bottled. Poured cloudy yellow with a bright white, meringue-like head. Hops, malt, yeast, and citrus aroma. The flavor is lemonpeel, spice, and malt, with a nicely hoppy/bitter aftertaste leading to a dry finish.

#100. Bottle. Pours cloudy dark yellow with small particles. Thick off white head. This stuff damn near pours out of the bottle. Very carbonated, but it’s soft if that makes sense. Aroma: Grapefruit and citrus. Some yeast. Lively medium body. Nowhere near the complexity of a good Tripel. I don’t get the style rating for this one. Decent though.

A very interesting beer. Not too sure if it really fits into the ’tripel’ category, but its damn good. Much more hoppy than any tripel i’ve had, but finished as expected. If you are looking for an IPA, don’t be fooled by the name.

33cL bottle, consumed at Pizzeria Paradiso (Georgetown). Pours a murky orange-yellow / grapefruit color; textured white head with great retention and fine-bubbled lacing, coating the glass; a gorgeous pour. Tons of dense yeastiness, grapefruit, toastiness, and warming vanilla and fruit in the aroma; dense, dry, with a prominent fruitiness. Lively carbonation. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: lots of yeast, yellow fruits and toasty vanilla; the yeast character is pretty fantastic; dry; very generous. Lengthy finish, showing yeast, and dry breadiness and wheaty / toastiness; some yellow fruit.