New Glarus Unplugged Belgian Quadruple

Sampled at the RBSG 07 Grand Tasting. Light gold colored beer. Sweet nose with a faint sourness to it. Caramel and spice in the sweet body.

12 oz bottle courtesy of Stine, thanks alot! This is a light colored quad but in this case that’s not a bad thing. Amber in color with a small to medium off white head. Aroma is very fruity, lightly oaky, vanilla, spicy. Taste is cherry, apple, heavy caramel, belgian spices, with notes of vanilla and wood. Finishes malty and lightly sweet, although never cloying.

Approximately 1.5 oz. sample at the Grand Tasting of the RateBeer Summer Gathering 2007 in the Twin Cities, MN on July 23, 2007. This was the fifteenth of 26 beers that I sampled and rated during the tasting. Poured from a 12 oz. bottle. Smells more like a tripel than a quad. Spicy, cookie, gingerbread aroma. Pours a clear, dark gold with a near white head. It’s the lightest colored quadrupel I’ve ever seen. Okay, at least it tastes quadrupely, although it’s not a very good quad. A little metallic. Medium to full body. Sharp and lively in the palate. I have to say that I’m disappointed in this one. I know that New Glarus is capable of making a better quad than this.

Bottled. Amber coloured. Sweet fruity aroma with notes of yeast. Sweet yeasty flavour with a bourbon finish.

Pours a nice mix of red and brown. Head is huge and white to yellow and creamy, and leaves loads of lacing. Aroma is mainly yeasty. The flavor makes it obvious that it was aged in bourbon barrels, you can taste the alcohol in it on the aftertaste. There are some nice cherry like flavors in it as well as some other fruits, and maybe a hint of vanilla as the label suggests. Seems to me that the flavor improves as it warms up a little. Light to medium carbonation, and not very watery. Thanks Presario!

The New Glarus Unplugged Belgian Quadruple is beer’s take on chaos. The flavor, the smell – everything about this drink is sheer anarchy. Don’t let the calm demeanor fool you. The hazy peach color and still, spongy head belie a liquid potion that will send your senses reeling for sanctuary. Here’s how the aroma begins. First I catch a little radish, clean and burning, making for a great nasal passage cleaner. Then I sense some insecticide, which smells somehow industrial, but clean and even a bit sweet in a generic way. Next is alcohol, honey and clean diaper. The alcohol I can expect, and same with the honey, but like the insecticide, the diaper throws me for a loop. Again it has a sort of industrial sterility to it that isn’t as bad as it sounds, but a diaper was still one of the last things I anticipated finding in a beer, or anything that I readily consume. Closely following is a bevy of fresh strawberries, and bringing up the end a handful of licorice and a dollop of generic sourness. At this point I’m confused and left staring at my beer like it’s an instruction manual for an atom smasher written in Singhala. I’m also ecstatic. All kinds of new aromas are assaulting my olfactory in a random, non-sensical and even post-modern fashion. This is the hallucinogenic of beers. I dive into it, eager for a tongue warping of epic proportions. Cotton candy, strawberry and cherry immediately paint my tongue with a bright and cheerful sweetness, all while embedded in a light and fluffy mouth feel. Then the sugars are peeled off as quickly and forcefully as they had appeared, replaced by a spice rack’s worth of crackling, cackling flavor: cardamom, anise, amidst a pool of lemon and pear juice. Just as I acclimate to this new layer of flavor I’m reset again. This time I’m dipped into a semi-foul cesspool kind of flavor, before all composite tastes blink out into nothingness. The new vapid and bleak nothingness, existential supreme, carries on through the aftertaste. I’m left hollow, and depressed. I’m joyously confused, but also feel betrayed. I’m pitiable, and celebratory, then angry and hurt, and then elated. Shrmlbzlxjxyryrsa. Then I collapse into the nearest chair and silently cry to myself for a few minutes before making another attempt. This beer is a mind screw, and will likely brain damage a drinker in conjuction with other alcohol and/or other substances. Drink with caution.

Wow, got the cherries, the vanilla, and the booze. This followed another American take on a a Belgian Quad (Avery). I think this is a well creafted beer...just a little too sweet for me.

Robust yeastiness assaults the nose upon pouring the amber liquid. This quad has a very complex fruitiness that’s tough to pin down...tart dried cherries, plums, vanilla, oak, raisins, and maybe a dried orange peel. But mainly huge brett yeastiness...along with a heavy yeast sediment in the final ounce at the bottom of the bottle. I like it.