Orval

Brewed by Brasserie dOrval
Style: Belgian Ale
Florenville - Villers-d.-Orval, Belgium

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

Sour trappist ale with dry finsih. Toasted malts and earthy palate but good drinkability. Very original

11.2 FL OZ champagne shaped dark brown, bottled on 05/08/09. Great looking bottle with nice weight.. Pours huge escaping cloud of off white head leaving a hazy dark burning amber of ale underneath. Aroma mixes sweet with a little grass meets leaves funk . Taste a little touch of orange covered with a meduim sour maltiness and a bit of alcohol. Carbination is lively and the texture is smooth with a nice quick bitter finish.

330ml bottle
Appearance: Slightly hazy orange/amber with a nice fluffy white head, leaving lacing in the glass
Aroma: Brett, lemons and spices
Taste: Spices and citrus up front and then some sourness and hops in the finish
This is a very nice beer. Enjoyable to drink, crisp and clean.

UPDATED: DEC 3, 2010 Copper brown beer with big and blond head. Aroma is very delicious, lot of bananas, green apples, yeast, spicy and some overcooked fruits. Flavour is complex, yeast, sourness, bananas, sour appless, dry bitterness and spicies. With yeast flavour is more balanced and smoothier and individual nuancees are not so strong. Quite easy to drink with balanced carbonation. Orval is very complex beer with interesting nuancees and challences; classic.

Pours amber with a large white head. Aroma is light caramel, brett, light hop, horseblanket, grapefruitseest and fruity notes. Flavour is grapefruit, horseblanket, some sweetness at first.

Bottle. Pours a hazy semidark orange with a huge, I mean enormous rocky, bubbly tan head leaving substantial amounts of itself on the flass wall as it slowly recedes. Looks gorgeous. Aroma is a nice blend of sweet, sour and funky, most of the latter. Barnyard, some cheese, dusty notes, with a slight citric acidic tinge, some hard to pin down sweetness beneath it all, with a bit of alcohol as well. Sweet at first, a pretty big bitter and lemony sour dryness quickly hits, and rounds it off. with yeasty funk notes lingering for a while. Light in body, this sparkly brew is a refreshing and drinkable one, not one you need to delve into with full concentration, but one you easily could if you wanted to. If anything, I’d want it a bit less dry in the finish and the alcohol a bit toned down as it’s a fairly pronounced when it warms.

Fairly strong aroma of orange, lemon and vanilla with some citrusy hops in the background. This is not a pretty beer. Color is cloudy orange brown that makes me think of dishwater. Murky or dirty but it does boast a thick, rocky white head that is somewhat impressive. The flavor is primarily bitter and acidic but quite light and enjoyable. Whatever malt is present is light and overshadowed. The palate is thin and somewhat astringent. This is a good beer overall but I’m still disappointed because it doesn’t feature the complexity that i’ve come to expect in a Trappist ale.

Bottle 330ml. Delicious and different. Aromas of apple, yeast, and caramel. Taste is great, it starts sweet with some sourness, and it has a long bitter finish. Palate is velvety, and medium bodied. Orange, bubbly, with a big frothy head.