Piraat 10.5%

Brewed by Brouwerij Van Steenberge
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Ertvelde, Belgium

11.2 oz bottle poured into a sniffter. Color is a rich orange with a thin and quickly disappearing white head. Smells distinctly of bread and ripe fruit. Taste is very sweet at first, then followed by almonds and spice. Goes down very warm, alcohol is very present but not overpowering. Above average.

12oz bottle as part of gift pack from LCBO for Christmas 2007. Best before of May 2009. Pours a murky light brown with a fluffy head that recedes quickly to a normal film. Allowed to warm for about a half hour. Strong aroma, but it’s too sweet. First taste is sweet, with a hint of spice as it warmly goes down the throat. Full bodied. The sweetness continues but is reasonably kept in check. Pretty nice, strong stuff.

Piraat 10.5% Yeasty nose right off the bat. Golden color well carbonated a light dusting white head builds up after the pour. The first thing I can taste is the Belgium candy sugar/sweetness. Drinkabilty high, I had no problem finishing a 750 ml on an empty stomach for dinner. Alcohol is hidden, 10.5 % you would think alcohol would hit you in the nose or on the palate but it is hidden, until you try to stand up after you drink a Champaign bottle of it. But then again I drink the hard stuff and if you raise the glass to your face and the fumes don’t burn your eyes the alcohol content isn’t high. I’m not a trained beer evaluator but the years on the stool belly up to the bar has given me some relevance and this is it this beer is just this one dam good beer.

Draft - The beer has an easy settle with a hazy copper look. There is a moderate malt flavor with an increasingly sweet finish. The beer is complex, but smooth enough to drink with gusto. This is especially true considering the ABV.

Awful. Pours clear gold with a fizzy white head. Orange peel, spice, and malt in the aroma. Taste was a metallic straw flavor with some malt and spice. A dirt-like finish. Judging by the other ratings, I may have got a bad one. But the one I got does not make me want to find out for sure.

Copper look, with quickly dissolving head. Malty aroma, but not overly strong. Not a spectacular beer. Malty taste, with very little hint of the alcohol. Nothing about it that makes me what to try again.

33 cl import bottle, part of a sampler pack of Belgians from Foremost, Oak Forest. Smells of basic Belgian malts with a sugar component. Pour kicks up a big white head with more Belgian smell, some heady alcohol semaphores a warning to take this carefully. Head retreats enough to show a burnished brass color beneath. Taste starts with warming alcohol and doesn’t let go. Adds in touches of vanilla and, somehow, a note of chocolate liqueur. Very strange. Mind must be playing tricks on me. Grassy hop traces, some pomegranate fruitiness, as in a touch of tartness. Flowery notes actually keep the sugar and alcohol in check, but as I write this, I’m feeling it in my system. Fine example of a popular Belgian beer.

750ml. The commercial description is pretty accurate. Pretty much just a tripel with some more caramel malt throughout. Rather sweet and fairly light and easy to drink given the ABV. Decent and solid beer.