 Old_Mr_Crow (1038), Seattle, Washington, USA
Jun 5, 2006
From a relatively fresh bottle in May 06.
Pours a dark brown with red -brown highlights and a robust tan head. The aroma is apple cider, apricots, and brown sugar. The flavor is highly refined - rather than being in-your-face, it carries warm roasted malts, laced with mild plum sweetness, into a balanced hop-dominated finish in which the bitter flavors mingle with tendrils of residual sweetness. Plenty of pepper and spice on the tongue, but pepper and spice that are there for you to seek and out savor, rather than spices that impose their presense on you. I admit to tasting hints of old-school diet pepsi, the quite dry kind with a bit of bitterness in the artificial sweetener, but even this isn’t an altogether bad thing, though I can’t explain precisely why not.
The beer is extremely drinkable, aided by the ample carbonation and relatively light mouthfeel that come without sacrificing quality or even - if one looks hard enough - complexity. I’d dare conjecture that this beer would make a very nice introduction to trappist styles for those just beginning to explore the genre.
JesseM (406), Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Oct 6, 2008 330mL bottle from the LCBO. Pours a very dark burgundy with a huge tan head that eventually reduces to some nice fluff. Aroma is really nice, some Belgian caramalt, loads of yeast and fruity esters, candi sugar, and some more generic sweetness. Smells quite enticing. Flavour is really good, and not what I’ve come to expect from Dubbels. Lots of the sweet malty aspects upfront, met with some nice herbal hops, a touch of alcohol, and rounding out very sharply with a lot of yeasty dryness. Mild hint of banana. The fruity esters in this one are just great. Very sharp. Some leafy hops are present in the flavour too, but were absent in the aroma. Red grapes feature prominently, and lend a very pleasant and apparent red wine characteristic to this well crafted brew. Very nice stuff, and I look forward to more.
thooper41 (225), USA
Oct 5, 2008 11.2 oz bottle: pours dark brown with quick fading off white head, aroma has faint yeast smell aloong with hints of fruit, flavor is kind of weak has a light tasting base malt along with some raisons and along with that complex belgian twang thats hard to explain. pretty good beer but belgium has a lot more to offer.
wilderthanyou (322), Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Oct 5, 2008 The beer pours a deep murky brown with a sticky light beige head. The aroma is very yeasty with light notes of some dark fruits, a little thin for a Belgian. The flavour was pretty decent, mostly of dark fruits, but the finish is what makes this beer, first there is a dry hoppy sour bitterness that melts away to leave behind this dark sour cherry flavour that sits on your tongue until the next sip, friggin awesome.
matt7215 (578), Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
Oct 5, 2008 330ml bottle from the LCBO. pours beautiful deep red/brown with a big tan head. dark fruit aromas with yeast coming through with slight alcohol as well. flavours are a slight let down. nice dubble qualities but very rough and boozy. im goin to let my other bottles sleep in the cellar for awhile.
patricks110 (172), Alberta, Canada
Oct 5, 2008 In 2 words: completely outstanding. My first trappist beer. From bottlescrew bills, Calgary AB. Pours a dark brown with hints of red and purple. Looks almost like Pepsi or Coke. Aroma of fruity hops, sweet malts and slight bitterness. Taste is pretty unique and interesting. Nutty earth fruit flavour and malts which dance on my tongue. Overall, an incredible beer and a wonderful display of brewmanship from Belgium.
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