Ommegang Three Philosophers

Brewed by Brewery Ommegang (Moortgat)
Style: Abt/Quadrupel
Cooperstown, New York USA

Pours tea-brown with a large tan head. Aroma is great, cherries, citrus, alcohol, baking bread, anf faint all-spice in the bouquet. Flavor starts bready, quickly moving through a woody section, cherries, hop "pepper", alcohol note, and a lingering, rye bread-like finish. Very nice.

Bottle (75 cl) from Systembolaget. Hazy ruby with medium creamy yellow/beige head. Dark fruits, burnt sugar, cherries and wood in the aroma. Medium bodied and very smooth mouthfeel. Good balance, perhaps just a bit too sweet.

Bottled, 2007. Poured clear brown with ruby highlights and a tan, foamy head. Nose was cherries, yeast, and malt. Flavor was sweet malt, cherry pits, wood, soft alcohol notes. Finish was dry and nicely bitter with a finely carbonated mouthfeel.

I love this beer. At this moment, this is my favorite beer. Brewery Ommegang has won my heart. I buy this at the grociery store down the street from me in the corked bottle. It pours a very dark amber, with a scent of black cherries, and other glorious fruitiness. The flavor of this beer hits you as soon as it enters your mouth and hangs around long after it has left. Almost perfectly smooth. Anytime I have friends over I share some of this with them and they are immediately overcome with the greatness of this beer.

Bottle from Total Wine, -poured into a Chimay glass. Handsome looking beer with a nice burnt amber color. Smallish white head. Interesting beer, the palate on this is light cause it has quite a bit of carbonation, yet that makes it more drinkable than the 9.8% would indicate. Some of the complexity of it is lost due to the carbonation though, but as it warms you get some raisin and cherries the cherry comes through more than is typical but thats to be expected because of the cherry infusion. There is a cool smoke note on the end almost like it was aged complemeted by vanilla and more cherry a tiny bit of sour funk comes through also, very welcome. A little bit of bitterness but not alot considering its an American belgian. Very classy brew from Ommegang.

bottle to glass. dark red and cloudy, the smell of berries and fruit. some sticky lacy head. immediate hit of sweetness and cherries. not as sweet as some, but sweeter than others. for the alcohol content, very little burn. ends smoky and woody with a little herbiness, but just barely a bit of bitterness. good stuff, not really re-drinkable.

Pours cloudy amber-orange with a one-finger white head. Yeasty, earthy, lightly oxidized aroma (bottle is from 2007, so I think it’s intentional). Faint tart cherry and alcohol. There’s a flavor somewhere past all that carbonation. It’s raisiny, musty, and somewhat funky. More Bernardus than Rochefort, by which I mean more size than fruity complexity. Good, but nowhere near as delicious as the best Abts. I have some 2004 bottles that are begging to be cracked, so we’ll see how it’s aged.

750 ml bottle from Systembolaget, shared with a friend. Complex, vinous aroma with a lot of fruitiness. Flavour is pretty much the same. Quite sweet with a light acid note from the kriek, which makes tis very special. Ommegang seems to have catched the belgian taste (from two belgian styles) here, in a very good way. Palate is great, very smooth and nice. Very nice abt, one of the better ones I’ve tasted and it carries the alcohol very well. Balanced! Reminds me a bit about Chimay Blue. To bad I doesn’t have a bottle to store.