Ommegang Abbey Ale

Brewed by Brewery Ommegang (Moortgat)
Style: Abbey Dubbel
Cooperstown, New York USA

Good stuff! Wonderful fruity aroma, like apples aged with their peel. The color is so nice, translucent brown and red. The taste is complex and begs to be sampled over and over. The commercial description does a pretty good job: fruit again, and a candy-like sweetness. The alcohol warms nicely on the way down too. I sure wish I had bought another bottle of this one! I REALLY like this brewery! Belgian, Belgian-style who cares? It’s good and I will buy it again.

Dark ruby hue with an excellent yeast, fruity, spicy aroma. No doubt a good amount of aromatic Belgian malts used. Lots of banana in the nose. Great flavor that matches up to the aroma, but slightly watery. Lots of fruit. It is difficult to replicate true Belgian beer in USA I believe. Great effort!

"Sex and beer, Sex and beer are the two things we hold dear. Sex and beer, Sex and beer are the things we like 'round here" - Pat McMurdy, Summerfest, 2003

ommegang is a big, beautifully packaged corked bottle of beer that is rich in flavor, celebratory in nature, and fair in price. the cork is set in there like excalibur in stone, but that observation says more about my strength (lack of) than any fault with the beer. the pour did finally begin with a hydrant full of big eyed bubbles that crackled like a brush fire until they had coalesced into a lappy foam the color of walrus tusk. the ale’s smoky mars red color is darkened by a smooth fog of yeast. the beer could be seen as a tribute to northern orchards, and the rich soils that support them: the apples, pears and plums that darken in winesap richness in long hours of sunshine of a northern summer. the aroma is of damp ground, brown bread crusts, apple butter, plum jam, butter brickle candy, alcohol and the woody shavings of both clove and cinnamon. the carbonation has a natural trajectory of youthful ebullience and sparkle at the outset, to a still active but calming creaminess by bottle’s end. after the carbonation, the sweet malts become apparent: earthy dates, syrupy old, soft brown apples, and ripe dough-- followed by a strong twang of root-like bitterness, a flemish sour note, and a distinct pastisse (anise) finish. the buzz however is the real finish, and it lingers as hot and lustily as any torrid teenage hicky.

Bottle. A rich dark amber beer with a beige head sitting on top that stays as a coating of lace on the glass. Wonderful to look at. Aroma is fruity and caramelly sweet. Rich complex flavors - honey, caramel, plum, some sort of berry - with a big alcohol warming at the end and lingering toffee/honey.

Christ,as soome as I opened this the aromas of Ripe bananas and spice bitch slapped me,Man awesome.Lots of candy in the buttery sugar form aka caramel.Heavy carbonation on the tongue which fizzles some of the flavor away but still this brew is pretty descent with the yeast strains and malts producing lotsa’ fruity sweetness.

I really like the reddish color and overall appearance of this one. Malty caramel aroma. Somewhat spicy, with some fruit and sweetness as well as some chocolate on the back end. A little bit of alcohol as well, but not close to distracting. I really dig the high carbonation as well... makes for an interesting drink. Makes me want to go out and get a trappist glass as a standard pint glass does not do these belgians justice.