Westvleteren 12

Brewed by Westvleteren Abdij St. Sixtus
Style: Abt/Quadrupel
Westvleteren, Belgium

Serve in Trappist glass

Best by Apr. 2015, so I guess my bottle is a yearish old. I don’t know how I can be objective rating a beer that I’ve waited 7 years to get my hands on. Okay, it’s a dark mahogany pour, with swirls. A frothy head with some sediment on the top that looks like cinnamon on a cappucino. Intensely fruity aroma, dark fruit. The flavor is predominantly dark fruit, sweet apples, figs and grapes. Some candied sugar, but this is predominantly fruity. An airy, bubbly mouthfeel. Darned good...but I think I preferred the 8.

From a bottle in Brussels, Belgium august 2011. Beutiful redbrown color with a big tanned head. Malty aroma with brown sugar and dried fruits. Lovley sweet taste with a alcohol flavor that dosen´t matter, nice taste of dried fruits. This is looove in a bottle :-)

Bottle @ Cafë risras in Århus. Pours dark belgian brown with a solid light brown head. Aroma is dark ripe fruits, caramel malts, toffee, ripe plums, chocolate, a very light leathery note and some bready yeast. Taste add some light funkyness, some hops, spice, very light acid and liquorice which gives balance towards all the sweetness in there. Really nice!

Bottle @ Cafe Buitenlust, Oirschot. Hazy brown color, small head. Smell malts, lightly alcohol and caramel. Taste malts, caramel, lightly bitter. Decent carbo, medium to full body. Nice beer, but I don’t taste 4.48 in this beer. Maybe because it’s relatively easy to get around here?

Bottle in Westvleteren glass. Nice fruity aroma, some yeast or wheat scent. Dark reddish brown colour, some sediment, some carbonation but not a lot. Taste molasses and caramel and fruit, nice dry bitter finish. The best beer in the world? I think I like St. Bernardus 12 better, but that’s just me.

Bottle courtesy of James and Streets. Shared with those two and Andy. Pour is muddy brown with spotty sediment. Whispy head. Aroma is apple/citrus/acid and Robitussum (??). Interesting. Mouthfeel heavy, palate is a little hoppy with some resin and medicine (again). Complex as hell. I may not be ready for this.

Tasted on 8/22/11 from a 330mL bottle obtained in a trade. Pours hazy dark brown with orange and red tints, a very thin and a bubbly tan head that recedes rather quickly to nothing. The nose is super complex with tons of lightly burnt brown sugar and caramel malt, a whole bunch of fruity fig, raisin, date, and molasses, with just hints of bitterness and some alcoholic heat. The flavor is lightly sweet with all of the same caramel, burnt brown sugar, fig, raisin, date, toffee, and molasses detected on the nose with an added lightly green hops note. The body is full and oily with light carbonation and long fruity caramel, toffee, and lightly bitter burnt finish.

UPDATED: JAN 25, 2012 Wow, I almost feel like a heretic... How do you rate a legend? It’s almost impossible, isn’t it? Let’s deal with the basics first: dark brown pour with a medium - smaller than I would have expected - tan head. Aroma is unlike anything else I’ve had. Not even like a typical Abt. There’s a lot of sugar of course, and dark fruit, but the yeast is present in a way I haven’t experienced elsewhere. This also carries through to the taste, which has the same balanced yeasty sweetness. The complexity lies here: plums, raisins, dark fruits, roasty and bready malts and of course brown sugar. The alcohol comes through a bit as the beer warms up but as with any good belgian beer, never becomes too much in your face. Body is surprisingly light, as is the carbonation, but the lingering aftertaste is LONG and one of the best I’ve ever had. That’s a memory that will stay with me for a very, very long time. This might not fully match the hype for me, but overall it’s still among the best I’ve ever had and the second best Belgian after Rochefort 10.