De Dolle Dulle Teve 10º (Mad Bitch)

Pours a hazy thick, orange amber color. The head is minimal. Smell is a bit piny, cedar, and buttery. Taste is yeasty, leathery, and a bit minty. The bottle was cold but the beer poured out perfect temp. This beer had a lot of interesting sediments at the bottlom of the bottle which were very chewy and sweeet/sour.

330 ml bottle from Sam’s in Chicago. Hazy golden amber colour with a mostly lasting creamy off-white head and thick lacing. Caramel, citrus, spices, light acidity, alcohol, floral, and persimmon aroma with dry yeasty notes. Caramel, candy sugar, orange and lime citrus, spicy, and yeasty flavours, with a sweet brown sugar finish. Full bodied, warming, almost chewy mouthfeel, but effervescent. Very tasty, but seems underattenuated for a tripel.

[bottle, no date] Tart, fruity aroma- sweet honey and pear. Pours a super cloudy, yellowish/gold color, with a huge white head, leaving some nice lacing along the glass. Flavors are initially quite sugary, with apple/pear fruitiness and yeast character. Very complex and full bodied; peppery hops blend with more yeast and candi sugar in the finish. Alcohol is quite noticable, but not harsh at all. Overall a really nice, complex triple.

2004 bottle. Decent aroma that was kind of funky. Good cloudy appearance with lots of activity and decent head. Flavor is a little bitter and sour at first. Changes personality after warming. Odd brew. Re-rate with a fresh bottle. I enjoyed this better than the aged bottle. Good taste that only got better as it warmed. Good balance.

33cl bottle. Cloudy orange/amber, thick frothy head diminishing slowly but surely. Tart fruit and yeasty aroma like other tripels, with a bit more cheesiness here, even a slight hint of truffles at first. Sweet flavors dominate---raw sugar, some toffee, golden raisin, orange zest and dried and sugar-powdered pinapple rings with some alcohol vapor misting up now and then. Medium, spirited palate. Very good, almost excellent tripel if only the sweetness were taken down just a bit.

Bottle. Pours a cloudy orange, with a finger of bubbly tan head. Smells like bananas, with hints of citrus and apples. Malty, tingles the mouth and throat as it trickles down. Tastes like a banana laffy taffy. Wow, this is tasty, and it warms ya right up. Can’t wait to try more brews from De Dolle.

Imagine all the oozing, corpulent zombies you like. Envisage haunting specters roaming down hall ways to your heart’s content. Ruminate on swamp monsters, vampires, werewolves, scientific abominations and uncanny murders until you turn cold and clammy, but we all know that there is something supremely scarier than all these blood curling thoughts: the angry termagant, or as it’s known in the beer community, the Mad Bitch! It was hardly a choice which beer would be most appropriate for Halloween night. But it’s a sardonic beer on any occasion. I distinctly recall a woman coming into a local wine shop and asking for a “Joke beer, maybe something funny in the name”. Sure enough, Mad Bitch was suggested and, rather than take offense the woman seemed rather intrigued. The label attempts to drill into the psychological core of women’s rage but even its confusing colors and alarming visage fail to do justice to the great purging anger of the better sex. The acrimonious words and bellicose saber rattling of a truly fearsome warrior of the XX clan simply can’t be conveyed in image. From the bottle issues forth a cloudy and richly colored beverage the hue of bees wax with a nigh uncontrollable whipped egg white head. I had to pace the pour for about five minutes to fit the whole drink in my glass – uncontrollable! The nose is far more charming, gracing the nose with pear, sour apple, butter, lemon, clove, red grapes, fresh mountains stream, and a hint of generic sourness. With a little warmth this bouquet includes creamed honey, apricot, honey suckle and sweet yellow corn. The taste abandons all this deceptively sweet charm and burdens itself with savory seriousness, committing itself to a heavy biscuit theme flanked by yeast and white bread tastes. It is advised, then, that the Mad Bitch is enjoyed at a safe distance where the pleasing aroma can be appreciated and the coarse and mild mannered taste can be avoided. If we are to survive the horror of horrors that is a woman’s scorn (Greater than or equal to Hell’s fury and all that) then we must learn to keep our distance and, in some cases, find a heavy obstacle to duck behind so that we may later enjoy the lighter side of the same idyllic angel who only yesterday was called the Mad Bitch!

33cl bottle, no date. Pours a light caramel golden with a huge eggshell head. . Aroma of candy sugar, yeast, dusty bananas, peppery spicy hops, and a little vanilla. Taste is much the same with a little bit of caramel and sweet orange citrus. Dry finish with some warming ETOH in the back of the throat. Full bodied, mod-high carbonation. One of the better tripels.