Westmalle Dubbel

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

Serve in Trappist glass

Rich aroma with strong tones of apple. A highly complex taste with a blend of cherry, apple, and chocolate. Quite dry in the finish. An excelent beer.

Deep crimsony brown, thick lasting off white head. A rich and complex nose of plum, raisin, fig, brown sugar and faint notes of caramel. Flavor mirrors the aroma with soft malty rich dark fruit tones up front, and a nice light hop backing providing excellent balance. Medium bodied, pillow soft carbonation, dark fruity finish. Why I passed over this a million times is beyond me. Awesome abbey ale. Thanks again for the bottle hopscotch.

UPDATED: APR 12, 2004 Very good appearance. Flavor is quite heavy, bitter and a strong palate.
Rerate (april 12, 2004) Very malty, smooth fruity aroma with raisins. Red brown coloured with a brown lasting head. Much debris. Taste is fruity (cherry ?), malty and sweet. Excellent brew. A bit my homebrew, I always have westmalle dubbels in stock. What makes this beer so great is that it never bores.. It's always great. Not many beers have this potential.

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.

One of the best beer in the world.Amber colour,great taste.My friend got it for me from Belgium.Now i am waiting for tripel to taste.

Similar to some of my all time favorite dubbels but with even more emphasis on the dark berries. creamy with perfect carbonation amount. ample but not overspilling the bottle when you opwn it.

I found this 33cl bottle at Whole Foods tonight as I was looking for something new and I think I may overlooked dubbel styles after tasting this one. It poured well in my 50cl glass (a great find at Crate/Barrel) to form a cheerful oatmeal head, with lingering bubbles beneath. The first taste changed my mind about dubbel style ales as the candy-fruit, coffee, caramel, and hops all exploded at once. I’m sorry I only purchased one bottle as this was just outstandingly smooth with bitter traces reminding me how much I enjoyed it. I found this to be very drinkable and I was wondering, as I always do with great beer in a bottle, what the ale would be like on tap...an exciting idea as I know barrels are available of this one, but not the Triple, in the USA.

UPDATED: JUL 28, 2007 Bottle. Pours a deep reddish-brown with a medium-sized off-white head. Aroma is candy sugar with slight malt and dark fruit characteristics. Taste is malt and candy sugar up front, and on the back end I detected some hints of plum, raisin, and spices like cinnamon and maybe coriander. An absolutely wonderful dubbel, and one of my all-time favorites.