St. Bernardus Abt 12

Best Before: 12 07 12. Appearance: Pours a near opaque, dark brown body with a full, cascading, and lasting, ivory-colored head. Sea foam lacing on the way down. Smell: Aromatic blend of stewed, spiced fruit, liqueur, and chopped up chocolate cookies and candy bars. Taste: First and foremost, it’s fruity, tasting of golden raisins, plum juice, and candied figs. Then you get some maltiness, mainly dark chocolate and nutty caramel. Hit of dark candi sugar. Not really much in the way of hops here. Touch of clove and nutmeg. Sip of creme de cocoa. Maybe a bit of fresh, oily orange zest. Finishes malty, sweet, and rather warming. Mouthfeel: Medium-plus body. Moderately carbonated. Drinkability: Paired very well with some Pinback mp3’s (particularly "Tripoli" and "Seville"). Full of flavor, rich complexities, and yet it’s easily accessible and generally readily available from coast to coast. What’s not the like? Although, I will say, I dug that ’Special Edition’ a bit more. That’s just me, though!

THOUGHTS: So much carbonation it took me a very long time to get the cap off without an explosion. (Around 15 mins ar least.) Boy was this different. it’s almost like taking an incredible beer and mixing it with what we all used to think of as being beer before we had good beer. And I don’t mean Bud. I mean when someone had a German or other European import that isn’t excellent but was way better than crap beer. Oops I meant macro beer. So in other words exotic yet accessible. There seems to be a lot of German in this Belgian ale. Both are present but it’s still Belgian. Hid alcohol well. Overall I’m not impressed. It was a nice beer, but I thought it would be incredible. TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured a murky to muddy, medium to dark reddish orangey brown with small and large body particles of an average density and a small to average, off-white head that mostly diminished. The aroma was light to moderate molasses, moderate doughy yeast, apple, cherry, brown sugar, a little spice, fruity, slight citrus and ever so slight alcohol. The initial flavor was moderately sweet and lightly bitter; while the finish was lightly acidic and moderately bitter with an average duration. There was yeasty dough, molasses, maybe toffee, some fruit like apple and cherry some spices, but also something more. The medium body was oily, yet also a little syrupy with very fizzy carbonation and a moderate alcoholic and dry finish. It went down easier the warmer it got.

Draught at GLB 08’. Deep brown pour with very little head and faint nose of nuts and carmel. Nuts, carmel, butterscotch, sweet malts on the palate. alcohol is well concealed. very very nice.

Wow, this is a fine beer, and it’s fairly easy to get which is why this is a staple in my fridge. Right up there with Westy 12 but not as creamy.

Bottle 750 ml. Pours a deep dark chocolaty brown with a moderate caramel colored frothy head. Held up to the setting sun nary a ray of light shines through, its that deep in color. The aroma is sweet and fruity with a the wonderfull smell of fresh baked bread. The smell of alcohol is very present but it’s not at all overbearing. On the palate is has quite a bit of fiz and a deep malty flavor thats reminicent of bitter unsweetened chocolate and molassass with just a hint of alcohol. A wonderful hearty brew thats not overly sweet and thick and surpirsingly very refreshing for a dark brew. I plan to enjoy many more bottles of this fine beer.

Dark brownish red with a nice off white head. Cloudy with some floaters. Lots of fruits, raisin, caramel, spices, and alchohol. Moderate carbonation and slighty syrupy texture. Delicious.

Fruity and alcoholy smell. Quite high in carbonation and alcohol. Very complex and full taste, primarily fruity - raisins, banana, cherry, carob; other dark dried fruit. Other spices - cinnamon, nuts... Roasted malt; caramel-brown sugary sweet (in combination with high carbonation one part of taste reminds of Coca cola). Long and strong aftertaste alcoholy & fruity. Very dark brown in color. Yeasty sediment on bottom.

Poured a rich chestnut brown body with a thick frothy beige-tan head. Sweet, nutty, roasty, brown sugar, candy nose withfruity spicy esters. Prickly carbonic creamy mouthfeel. Hints of raisins, figs, bananas, cloce, pepper, and brown sugar. Super awesome complex one-of-a kind beer that rivals West Vleterin 12.