Westmalle Dubbel

Brewed by Brouwerij der Trappisten van Westmalle
Style: Abbey Dubbel
Malle, Belgium

Serve in Trappist glass

Bottle. Pours a murky deep amber with a huge creamy tan head. Sweet fruity malt aroma. Rich fruity taste, roasted malt, chocolate, toffee and caramel sweetness, balanced well by some dry hops at the end.

UPDATED: JUN 2, 2005 Bottled Rating 14, rerated now from tap in Brussel: :
Fruity aroma, spicy, notes of plums. Fruity taste, very malty, notes of burnt chocolate and notes of cacao. Very pleasant and tasty.

Dark brown hue. Pours with a light foamy head, the nose is spicy, fruity, malty of apples and cinnamon, gingerbread, prunes, bitter chocolate and cookie. The beer is rich medium-bodied with fruity flavors of dry fruits, raisins, figs, has good malty caracter of chocolate with a touch of porto in a dry finish.

Appearance: huge froth, to start, foamed everywhere, even over the keyboard, and ’scuse me while I mop up for a sec, will you, please? Okay, the beer’s calmed down a bit, and now we can judge it more suitably, perhaps...gorgeous garnet hue, nearly violet, deep ruby may be more like it, with a generous layer of foam atop, thick, plentiful, creamy, soupy, a dream to watch dwindle down... Aroma: like sticking one’s face deep down in a nest of ripe late-harvest fruits, and a bit from the vegetable side, too...a cornucopia in the nose, rich in cherries, and berries, grapes, and dates, and more that merely waits in the wings behind these major players...a deep, heady aroma, uplifting, otherwordly, luxurious! Damn, but it’s well past time to drink, isn’t it? Taste: smooth, mellow, but oh, so much flavor, too, too much going on, too, too delicious, and I don’t know where to start, actually, ...a rush of warmth, earthy fruitiness, plump and ripe and ever at home in the mouth. Mouthfeel? To capacity! Spices swim in, too, and envelope the senses, and dart about and add to the general sense of well-being felt everywhere that this brew touches. Another good gulp and I feel it again, this warm, spicy, earthy, deep, magical, tasty, fruity, magnificent....oh-my-goodness, sort of feeling...the malt is a wonderful buttress, and flavor-leader, too, but the hops, are a major contributor,as well, leading me to say, "screw it all, this is a perfectly integrated blend of all that’s great in beer-land, isn’t it?" I have more to drink from this bottle, too, and could more, possibly, be gleaned from the last remaining drops that may color my perceptions before this sampling is done? Did I leave out minor notes of nuts and cocoa and coffee, just a stitch? But the point’s made already, that this is among a rare subset of sublimity, and is so gorgeous that one is better off encountering it on rare occasions to make the meeting more special every time, I says.

UPDATED: OCT 25, 2009 Dark mahogany pour with soda like sudsy beige head. Slightly nutty, sweet fruit, and pleasant alcohol aroma. I like this one much much more than the tripel. Rich sweet malt with a really nice bitter, nutty, dark-fruit aftertaste. Like the tripel its somewhat one-dimensional for the style and maybe a tad sweet. Lively fluffy body. 8.4.8.4.17 [rerate 10.25.09] 11.2 oz bottle. Pours a darker shinny brown with a huge foamy root-beer float like rocky head. Aroma is sweet and bready, dark sugar, raisins, hint of plums, touch metallic, trappist yeast note is nice. First taste is a bit bready, dark rye, bitter, plummy yeast, odd metallicness, subtle sweetness, flavor vacantly detached from the airy body, lightly nutty, bitter plumy yeast aftertaste and long lingering dry charcoal. Medium bodied, big corse fluffy airy carbonation. I appreciate this in a different way after trying the Westvleteren offerings. Age has dried it out in a nice way, but some of the oxidation notes are distracting 7.4.8.4.15

Nive heavy beer. A classic trappist. A little more easy to drink than eg. Westvleteren. I had this draught, which gives the beer a little more yeast-taste.

Brown, tan head. Nose is apple, yeast, brown malt, dark fruits. Flavor is rich malt, yeast - restrained spice, alcohol, cherries & wood. Malty yeasty finish.

UPDATED: SEP 26, 2004 Pours with a large head and a dark brown color. Aroma is chocolate and raisins. Slight alcohol taste followed by some chocolate covered raisins and caramel. Fairly crisp taste and not alot of sweetness. All hail the trappist monks!