Friday, November 26, 2010

Witches' Brew Golden Ale

Let me be the last to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope it was filled with plenty of pumpkin pies and pumpkin ales. We should all be thankful that we live in a time where we have so much variety in our choices of great beer...oh yea, and thankful for family, friends, loved ones, yadda yadda. Anyway, I heard good things about this Belgian beauty and want to give it a try.

Appearance: After popping the cork (I love uncorking beers, don't know why) it pours a clear crisp golden and orange color with plenty of suds rising to the top to form massive amounts of fluffy head thanks to the bottle conditioning (but does not stick around for long).

Smell: Smacked in the nose with citrus hops, orange, some spices, and almost a champagne style smell. There are some other fruits in there, maybe banana, and a bready yeast smell as well. Delightful.

Taste: Some great flavors in this one, bananas, oranges, lemons, and spices. Pineapples also come to mind as it warms up a bit as the spices also come more into play. There is the slightest bit of sweet candy malt in the background, but just enough to let the hops do their thing.

Mouthfeel: Light bodied, smooth, thin, a little watery for what I would expect from most tripels, sufficiently carbonated, a gentle warming alcoholic aftertaste, not as biting or harsh as you might expect.

Drinkability: This might be the easiest drinking tripel I've ever had. Everything about this beer is so pleasant that going through a 750mL bottle is no problem, though you might feel it later at 9.3% abv. The Belgian brewery this beer comes from is Brouwerij Van Steenberge. Obviously this is the first brew from them I've had, so if anyone has recommendations of their other beers, let me know. I highly recommend picking this one up if you see it, even if you're not a Belgian fan. 9/10

Glass type: Duvel tulip glass
Serving type: Bottle, 750 mL

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