4 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 5/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 16/20
Bottle. Golden and clear. Fruity with some maltiness.Quite complex with a medium body. What a pleasant shock this was.A very classy beer that many people will probably ignore because its a high street lable. Dont -it is excellent.
3 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 12/20
Bottle. Clear amber with an off-white head. Aromas are toffee malts with citrus and crystalised pear. Cough medicine with floral notes. Flavours are sweet caramel with strong medicinal notes. Alcohol with lemon and spices. Pear with toffee and a green apple acidic finish. A bit unbalanced but OK.
2.5 AROMA 5/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 5/10 PALATE 2/5 OVERALL 10/20
33cl bottle from M&S Liverpool. Clear pale amber, thin beige head. Fruity esters on the aroma. But something not quite right, maybe a bit light on the malt on the aroma. In the mouth, it’s the same thing, some decent ester and rose petal fruit typical of Belgian tripels, but something not quite right with the malts. Bit lacking in hop too. Bit too syrupy. Not sure this is very good, even though there aren’t any bad/off flavours. Just a bit syrupy and doesn’t really flow.
3 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 11/20
330ml bottle (M&S)
Deep gold, small head. Aniseedy bubblegum aroma. Toffee butterscoth palate. Very sticky. Odd one, not so stypical tripel, needs to attenuate a bit further.
3.7 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 16/20
33cl bottle. Golden amber with a compact white head; gentle carbination; typical Beligan yeast aroma, toasty and lightly spiced and also some apricot; rich buttery texture with more tropical fruit and a light prickle; warming syrupy finish - coating the throat rather than stripping it. A very pleasant example of a Tripel.
3.3 AROMA 4/10 APPEARANCE 1/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 4/5 OVERALL 17/20
Brewed for M&S by Huyghe Brewery, Melle, Flanders. Pours dark amber, fizzy head quickly disappears. Sharp nose, sweet malty taste with burnt flavours. No alcohol taste despite 9% abv, but lasting warmth. FIrst of the specially brewed M&S beers I’ve tried, and a very credible go.
3.5 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 15/20
UPDATED: DEC 17, 2009 Bright and slick like a supermarket BrewDog; orange-gold under a slim, subsiding white swirl. Ripe nose;100% Belgian devilry, with no hint of the underlying ABV. Juicy bag of gooseberry, orange peels and perfumey seed like DT, as you’d expect, minus the earthiness. Goes down sweet, and irreverently chilled in a Tripel Karmeliet chalice. It suits; wheat/sugar slickness, perfumey spice, whispering citrus. Bob of lemon sherbets, orange peel and gooseberry right through it, hops even. No head whatsoever by the end, but I’m not really arsed. Has all the silk and swagger of a really decent Tripel, with the bits sucked out. Hats off to M&S for commissioning this, and sticking something so authentic and un-English in ABV on their shelves, even if it is a little bit sanitised. Someone there really seems to know what they’re doing at the moment. Fuck, they even spelt ’Tripel’ right...
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