3.3 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 13/20
29 Apr 06 - Lovely luscious sweet fruit and spice aroma. Light cloudy brown-tinged red colour, lowish head and goods suds lacing. Light sweet fruit with a nice light spice balance. Light flavour malt finish, thinnish mouthfeel and hoppy dry aftertaste.
1.9 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 2/5 TASTE 3/10 PALATE 1/5 OVERALL 7/20
Sweet hop malt aroma. Murky red brown colour with poor head and lacing. Sweet malt flavourthat fills your mouth for a milisecend then dissapears. Flat palate.
2.2 AROMA 4/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 4/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 8/20
Appearance doesn’t engender confidence – dull, murky, light caramel with no head at all. Subdued nose, faint traces of sweet malts, but I don’t really know what else to add. Challenging to taste early with a very unpleasant rancid meat character – yeech! (as Alfred E Newman would say). Thankfully this blows off soon enough – bottle stink at its worst perhaps. Palate doesn’t have a lot to say – mild pongy, stewed malts and fruits with a noticeable lack of drive. Unfortunately the off flavour notes didn’t totally disappear - not really sure what is wrong here.
1.8 AROMA 3/10 APPEARANCE 2/5 TASTE 4/10 PALATE 2/5 OVERALL 7/20
Nose is swimming pool water, cloves and a bit of banana malt. Pours cloudy with no head. Flavour is soupy and finishes metallic and with lingering dirty sock flavours. Mouthfeel is flat. I didn’t like it much, particularly for the style which is normally so good. Maybe we got a bad bottle.
3.3 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
Aroma: some apricot and malty aromas with some plasticy chocolate smells. Appearance: brown with red highlights and some haziness. Big white sudsy head that leaves patchy lacing. Flavour: sweet malty and stone fruity. Palate: thin with lingering salad vegetable and sweetness that quickly dissipates.
3.4 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 7/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 14/20
Bottle. Nice big head with good duration. Color is dark amber. Aroma is sweet, malty and fruity. Taste is malt and fruits as well. Good belgian - even with its relatively low amount of alcohol.
3.4 AROMA 7/10 APPEARANCE 3/5 TASTE 8/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 13/20
Dark amber coloured, with some reddish tints. Small off white head. Rather sweet aroma, malty with some light yeasty and fruity touches. Full body, malty taste. The finish is full, sweet-malty, with some caramel in it, ending rather bitter. Nice one.
3.1 AROMA 6/10 APPEARANCE 4/5 TASTE 6/10 PALATE 3/5 OVERALL 12/20
It’s comforting to have a mediocre Belgian ale every so often to assauge the jealousy that wells up every time I taste a Rochefort or a De Dolle. The St Paul range seems to be particularly moderate, which is presumably why it’s reached us in Australia. Can’t say I’m surprised that it has been retired. This looked fine in the glass: a bright ruddy brown with a fat mat of souffle-like foam, showing great head retention and lacing nicely. However, the aroma was phenolic, quite piercing and nose-prickling. A mix of nail varnish, dark raisiny dried fruit, toffee and faint chocolate pudding. Not especially inviting - implied a rather thin unintegrated brew. This began well in the mouth with some chewy toffee malt and a nice English nuttiness. The mouthfeel was initially quite creamy and filling but thinned in the swallow. There was some allspice in the mid-palate before a surprisingly spiritous finish for a 5.5% abv ale. (The crude taste of alcohol seems to be a feature of the St Paul range.) Overall, it was a fairly sweet concoction, quite drinkable but like the rest of the range, inferior to the best of the Belgians. (33cl bottle, IBS Perth, bb Dec 2007)
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