New Belgium Abbey

Brewed by New Belgium Brewing Company
Style: Abbey Dubbel
Fort Collins, Colorado USA

12oz bottle. Pours a murky brownish copper body with bits of yeast particulate floating around. Inch thick, dense and foamy, light tan head that dissipates slowly and remains pretty heavily laced. Aroma is sweet Belgian candies with a nice fruity Belgian yeast strain. Quite malty and fruity with lots of dark fruits, cherries, and bananas as well as a nice, subtle spicing. Good amount of chocolate and caramel in there too. Flavor is similar in complexity, but not as sweet. More towards the chocolate malts and drier spicing. The spicing stays subdued and soft, but is more noticeable along with a bit of roasted malts. Caramels and darker fruits as well before a dry, yeasty, spicy finish with a long chocolate spice aftertaste. Palate is medium bodied with a soft carbonation. Overall, a nice example of a dubbel. More chocolatey than most with a nice balance of spices that are lighter than most. I’m a fan of this. Complex assortment of malts (which still has a bit of that biscuity NB taste, but not nearly as much as usual...which is nice...because I tend to like their biscuit malt taste, but not in excess), fruits, and yeast that give it a more dessert-like dubbel taste which puts it right up my alley.

Complex flavors, small to no head. Great after taste, strong yeast taste. Almost biscuity.

12oz bottle: Pours a brown/amber color, good sized head, very fine bubbles, off-white. Aroma of perfume, sweet, alcohol.. Taste of malts, perfume, sugar, aftertaste of malt. Smells & looks lilke a dubbel, but tastes like a brown/double.

Hmmm - Drinking New Belgium beer is like a rollercoaster - some are great, some leave you very sunken and dissapointed. With this abbey dubbel I feel like I am listening to Coloradians doing sub-par Kareoke of good trappist ales. This was too sour, overly pear flavored and too thin. Like an Elvis impersonation of a Chimay. Its got the right character but the sideburns just are too uneven.

yeasty, banana aroma; dark carmelly malt flavor, with a balanced herbal hoppiness; banana and date/raisin fruit hints. Damn fine brew from NBB.

Wow! The aroma tells me I'm in Belgium. Floral, fruity and alcohol head. Very cherry flavor - but true to the Belgiium style. Warms me up and has a great finish.

Wow! If there were such thing as a ’comfort beer’ this would be it. Smells like fresh baked banana nut bread, complete with butter. Some hints of brown sugar in there also. Not as spicy as some other belgian type brews, but that’s fine by me. Also, I like how the sweetness is toned down to a tolerable level. I like this better than New Belgium’s Trippel.

(03.26.06) 12 oz brown bottle purchased from Liquidsolutions.biz. 7.0% ABV. Label states best before July 7, 2006. Poured clear dark amber with medium long-lasting off-white head. Good lacing. Soft carbonation. Spicy clove and toffee in the nose. Medium-to-full bodied ale that starts with fruity/smokey spicy clove/toffee flavors. Finishes with light malt fade. Smooth and rich tasting, this is an excellent Belgium abbey ale.