Piraat 10.5%

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

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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.

$3 330mL bottle from BevMo. Pours a light yellow amber with a soapy looking mixed bubble head that fades fast to thin mixed bubble layer. Initial aroma is a little bit of skunk or Saaz hops..BMCish, but then a few seconds later the aroma becomes very nice malty hints of banana and bread dough like the description, a bit of orange and maybe a bit of corriander. A bit of a plastic Brett phenolic as well. Very powerful aroma. Taste is dry, maybe a hint of sour. My first guess was the taste would be sweet until I detected the plastic brett phenolic, which then made me think it would be dry. I’m not sure if there really is brett in it, but I guess not, because the carbonation is a little low, but it sure is dry and a hint of sour. Not really my thing. Meh.

Copper color with a hazy look. Big bubbly off white head. Smell is sweet, fruity, some alcohol, candi sugar, and corn. Taste is some alcohol, sweetness, and fruit.