Moinette Blonde

Brewed by Brasserie Dupont
Style: Abbey Tripel
Tourpes-Leuze, Belgium

THIS IS NOT A TRIPEL!! It is more of an attempt to brew a slightly strong saison, hence the earthiness in the aroma and taste and the discreet hops and bitterness. It is also spiced, as can be detected by the brown specs on the head of the beer, and the slight coriander flavours. An excellent beer.

It smells like vanilla ice ceam and it taste like it a little bit too mixed with flowers. Very smooth beer I liked it a lot.

750 ml corked bottle from the SAQ. Hazy pale gold wtih a massive and long lasting rocky white head. Aroma is spicy and malted with notes of dough, citrus, herbs and yeast. Taste is similar to the aroma, very well balanced and a long aftertaste, not too bitter not too sweet, just perfect and a medium to full body. Another excellent beer from Dupont!

Cork says 2006. Different label than pictured. Pours hazy gold into a tulip. Bright white micro head quickly recedes to skim surface. Green apple, honey and hay aromas. Full and dry. Upfront banana flambe with a lasting bitter citrus finish. I wouldn’t call it a tripel.

Bottle: Pours golden and hazy with a very nice white, relatively short living head. Nose of citrus fruits, yeast and spices. The flavour is of oranges and lemon. More sour and alcoholic finish, the bitterness is weak but precent. It’s medium bodied. Fresh and tasty.

Bottle sampled with Stegosaurus. Pours golden with a white head. Aroma of citrus and yeast. The flavor is sweet, citrus, and fruit. For an abbey tripel i felt this one was a let down and over rated.

750mL 2005 bottle drunk on 9/1/06.
Yep, it’s a dupont (massive, dense, rocky white head is incredibly well-retained and laces the entire glass. Bottle is unfiltered, unpasteurized). Leaving the sediment behind produces a minimally hazy, pale-gold with some very light copper tresses. Tiny bubbles are apparent throughout the liquid.
Zestily dry, saaz and/or Golding-like hops are lightly spicy, heavily grassy and match the dry, crisp yeast in stride, playing balance to the clean, straw-meets-honey bouquet of malts that are fluffy, somewhat doughy and fully round and comforting. Fruit esters: nectarine, apriot, and lemon, meld perfectly with the hops, creating an almost tart note that is quite strong and very invigorating. Light minerals, clean water and honey-vanilla notes emerge with warming, in addition to an almost lavendar-like note. No alcohol whatsoever in the nose.
Light dough and soft honey are roused, slightly, by a bit of baked baguette crust breadiness. Hop bitterness is moderate, drying out the malt, while delivering crisp, refreshing spiciness. Light lemon-lime, fresh grass, hickory nut skin (and a touch of dustiness peaking through from the yeast) all combine on the end to keep things wonderfully dry. Even with warming, the lush malts never dominate the balance, though from start to finish, they provide excellently soft support on the palate. Frothy, engaging, tight carbonation (which needs time to breath) distributes the dryness and keeps the beer incredibly drinkable for its size. Light fruit esters (nectarine and pear skin) and delicious Dupont yeast are licked from the lips in the aftertaste, while zesty hop burps are further delightful. Near perfect attenuation, could possibly be even a bit drier, with slightly less breadiness, but this is sublime stuff.

Bottle... NTB Ernesto Festo ’06... 3 AM, September 1st... 70 MPH wind slamming the front sliding glass door. Rain working its way in under the bottom of the glass door into the living room. What kind of glass is this? Bending inward, but not cracking or breaking. A few pieces of debris hit the front of the house (which faces the beach), but nothing broken yet. Ocean has made its way all the way up the beach to the dune right in front of the house. Dune’s holding steady. Lovely beer in front of me... Murky golden ale with a large, rocky, white head. Terrific retention. The nose is bready, fruity and sweet with spicy phenols and banana and pear esters. The flavor is also yeasty, sweet and fruity, but delicately bittered so that balance is almost achieved. The sweetness never becomes cloying. Full-bodied with lively carbonation. Sweet, fruity, breadsy finish.