Belgian Strong Dark Ale

Victory V-Twelve

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So I haven’t actually reviewed my homebrewed tripel yet, but it’s definitely good enough that I might want to give it a name. Unfortunately, I kinda suck at that. I always end up with informative, but ultimately bland names. Witness the name of this blog: Kaedrin Beer Blog. Boy, I really pushed the envelope on that one. This is mildly depressing. Lots of beers have fantastic names and crazy backstories and I’m going to end up with, what? “Mark’s Tripel” won’t cut it. “Tripel Play”? Yeah, no one’s come up with that before. I just don’t have a knack for it. I wish that I could come up with something like Johno’s Trogdor The Burninator “Consummate V” Belgian Strongbad Ale, but even funny referential naming escapes me when I try to think of a name for my beer.

So when I see something like Victory V-Twelve, I’m somewhat relieved. It’s such a pragmatic name. It’s the sort of thing I would name a beer. I like to picture Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet sitting in a boardroom brainstorming names while drinking the beer, but because it’s fucking 12% ABV, they quickly get shitfaced and say “Fuck it, we’re Victory and it’s 12% alcohol, we’ll just call it V-Twelve!”, then do the Go Team Venture symbol and pop the cork on another bottle. Incidentally, this was sitting in my fridge for a while. Not only is it 12%, but it only comes in 750ml bottles, so you either need to share it with someone or you need to be in the right mood.

On Victory’s website (and the bottle itself), they say that it’s a “vintage-dated, Belgian-style specialty ale”. Alas, my bottle had no date on it (or perhaps it just got rubbed off or something). I know I bought it before the new year, so I’m guessing it’s at least half a year old, and given the high alcohol and flavors involved, I’m sure it could stand up to some long-term aging.

Victory V-Twelve

Pours a relatively clear dark amber/orange color with a minimal white head. Smell is full of dark fruits (plum?) and spices, with just a hint of Belgian yeast. Sticky dark fruit in the taste as well. Very sweet, I worried that it might get a bit cloying after a while, but that annoyance thankfully never developed. Some warming alcohol character is present as well. It’s got a full body but a smooth texture. Beer Advocate calls it a Quadrupel, but it seems more like a Barleywine than a Quad. Of course, Victory doesn’t really call it a Quad either – they call it a Belgian Specialty Ale (or an Amber Ale), which is probably more accurate.

Whatever the designation, this is quite good. Again, I was a little worried that the sweetness would get cloying, but I never actually got there, and as it warms, it evens out a bit. There’s no real bitterness at all, but its texture and alcohol keep it from getting too overwhelming. And speaking of that alcohol, it’s clearly present, but not in a bad or overly boozy way. It’s very well balanced with the rest of the brew. This is one of those beers whose quality has grown in my head as time goes on, making me want to get a few more bottles so that I have one on hand if the mood strikes. A

Beer Nerd Details: 12% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked) Drank out of a tulip glass on 4/30/11.

Victory continues to be my local hero. Even when I’m disappointed by one of their beers, I’m glad I tried it (and they’re usually still worth drinking anyway). I’m most definitely going to pick up a few more of these and age them, just to see what happens.

Vegas Beer Update Part 2: Vegas Harder!

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While my last update covered some fantastic beers, I was a little disappointed by the variety of good beers available to me in Vegas. I’m sure that if I actually sought out some beer bars, I would find something new and interesting, but it seemed that most places stocked the standard Macros and maybe one or two interesting beers. Fortunately, I did managed to have a few other beers, even some that I’d never had before:

  • Moretti La Rossa – At some point we ended up at an Italian restaurant for a sponsored junket/open bar and they actually managed to have a few Italian beers available. I picked one that I hadn’t heard of (because most of what I have heard of from Italy is not so good, like Peroni) and it turned out to be pretty good. It’s technically a Doppelbock, a style I’m not terribly familiar with, but which I should probably check out more often. It was a darkish red/brown color with a finger or two of head, and the smell was much fruitier than I was expecting. It’s also got some roastiness and maybe caramel sweetness in the nose. The taste went along with that. Medium bodied with high carbonation, it was quite drinkable and the alcohol was well hidden (I had no idea it was as strong as it was). As doppelbocks go, I understand this one is a bit thin, but it worked well enough for me, and was a welcome diversion from the typical macro selections. I have no idea if Moretti is part of the burgeoning Italian Craft beer scene, but my gut says it isn’t, even though I enjoyed this. More research needed… B+ (Beer Nerd Details: 7.2% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a plastic cup (yeah, no good beer geek glasses to be had – hard to complain about then when I’m getting free beer though))
  • Sin City Stout – Walking around the maze that is the Venetian shops, I spied this little hole in the wall:

    Sin City Brewing Logo

    In talking with the bartender, I learned that this is an uber-local brewery, only distributing to Las Vegas. Their lineup seemed rather standard (though I should note that their “seasonal”, apparently some sort of IPA, was out when I was there), but I wanted to try something new and different, so I ordered up a stout:

    Sin City Stout

    It was on a nitro tap, so I got one of them gorgeous pours, even if it had to be in a plastic cup. Indeed, it took forever for the nitro foam to subside, which wasn’t really a problem for me, as I do enjoy a good nitro pour every now and again. The beer itself was actually a pretty solid stout. Nothing particularly special about it, save for the nitro pour, but it holds its own against the other nitro stouts I’ve had, including Guinness. Dark, roasty, and tasty, I would probably order this before a Guiness, actually. Not a huge flavor-bomb or anything, but a really solid standard entry in the style. B+ (Beer Nerd Details: 6% ABV on nitro tap. Drank from a plastic cup.)

  • Sin City Weiss – I stopped back into the bar to try this one out, and what I got was another solid example of a rather standard style. When I ordered it, the bartender told me that it had a “banana clove” taste to it, as if it was a bad thing (apparently lots of people order it without realizing what wheat beers taste like), but that’s music to my ears. Again, very good beer, but not really exceptional or the best of its kind. Still, I really enjoyed it and if my upcoming homebrewed attempt at a wheat beer turns out this good, I’ll be quite happy. B (Beer Nerd Details: 4.5% ABV on nitro tap. Drank from a plastic cup.)
  • Chimay Grand Reserve (Blue): Chimay seems to the be the Fancy restaurant’s go to beer in Vegas, as it was available in a lot of the nice restaurants. So ordered one of these, probably my favorite Chimay variety, to go along with a really good steak I was having. As usual, it’s fantastic. Deep, dark brown color, sweet and fruity in the nose, and a taste to go along with the aromas. Fruity sweet, full bodied, and complex, it’s a classic. A

Of course, I had quite a few other beers during the course of the week, but nothing particularly interesting or that I could do a good review of… As noted in the comments to my previous post, Vegas isn’t quite a real place. Somehow the laws of the universe don’t seem to function properly there. It’s a good time, but after a few days, it wears on you pretty quickly. Still, from an alcohol-scared state like PA, it’s nice to be able to walk around outside with a drink. But that’s not really enough. I’m glad I’m back.

Update: Removed La Rossa picture. Because it’s a bad picture, that’s why.

Allagash Black

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Regular readers (all 2 of you), may recognize this as the beer I mentioned a few weeks ago for my entry to the “Regular Beers” Session. Of course, that entry only touched on this specific beer… as an example of a non-regular beer. For most breweries, at least. For Allagash, it’s one of their “classic” beers. For them, this is a regular beer. But they’re one of the few American breweries that specializes in Belgian styles, and we all know that the Belgians don’t make regular beer. Except for Stella Artois. That stuff sucks.

Allagash Black

Allagash Black – I don’t know why, but when I popped the cork on this one, I took a whiff of the bottom of the cork and it smelled… light and fruity (more like a saison or tripel style). Unexpected for a beer that bills itself a “Belgian Style Stout”. Of course, Beer Advocate classifies it as a Belgian Strong Dark Ale, which makes a sort of sense. Belgian styles are notoriously vague anyway, so I don’t see why this wouldn’t qualify as that. Belgian beers don’t usually emphasize roasty flavors though, so perhaps it could be classified as a stout. In reality, it’s probably more of a hybrid. Sometimes I like this sort of thing, sometimes I end up craving one of the styles being mixed instead of enjoying what’s in front of me.

Anyways, perhaps too vigorous of a pour lead to a massive head. The beer underneath appears to be a very dark amber/brown color. The nose is all Belgian yeast, spicy and fruity. Perhaps just a hint of roastiness. Taste is rich, chocolately and roasty. A little dry bitterness lingers. Carbonation is just a hint low (and possibly the result of the aforementioned pour), but it works very well. Its smooth and quite drinkable. At 7.5% ABV, it’s no monster, but it’s big enough that I was expecting some booziness… yet none is apparent. Quite an easy drink. It’s an interesting combination of flavors, though I’m not entirely sure it ranks among the best Stouts or the best Belgian Strong Darks… and quite frankly, I would probably rather have had one or the other, rather than this combination of both. It’s kinda doing its own thing though and it is well made, but it didn’t really strike a chord with me the way some other mixtures have. I’ll give it a B, though I suspect a bigger fan of stouts would like this a lot more.

Beer Nerd Details: 7.5% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet. Drank on 3/4/11 (Yes, I’m behind on my reviews. Again.)

Allagash has always been a bit of a mixed bag for me. As makers of Belgian style beers, they will always interest me, but I can’t say that they brew one of my favorite beers or anything. Yet. But I’ve mostly only had their “Classic” series, which are the more normal styles. The most interesting beer of theirs I’ve had was the 2009 Fluxus, which I remember as being fantastic. I was a bit worried when I read that it was “Ale Brewed with Sweet Potatoes & Black Pepper”, but it turned out to be fantastic. Unfortunately, it was a one time batch and I can no longer find it. In any case, I’m very much looking forward to the bottle of Curieux (a Bourbon Barrel-Aged Tripel) I’ve recently procured.

Affligem Noël

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After the Christmas festivities, I just wanted to site down and relax with some good beer, so I popped open one of my favorites of the season:

Affligem Noel

Affligem Noël: It’s strange, I don’t see much about Affligem in the beer nerd community. Perhaps because they have a relatively steady lineup of 4 beers (including Noël, the one seasonal on their roster). That being said, according to the bottle, this Abbey has been brewing beers according to a recipe orginating in 1074, and damn, everything they make is great, including the Noël. It’s gorgeous color, a deep orange/brown with a finger of light-colored head. Smell is crisp and clear, a little yeasty and maybe some fruit. Taste starts sweet with some dark fruit flavors, then you get some spiciness and a crisp, but not very bitter finish. It’s a wonderful and well balanced beer. The carbonation is a bit high, but given the relatively high ABV, that actually makes it more drinkable. This carbonation subsides a bit as it warms, at which point it begins to take on a more boozy flavor, but nothing overwhelming or bad. It’s a little more different than Affligem’s standard Dubbel (one of my favorites) than I was expecting, but it’s a fantastic beer and among the best of the winter seasonals I’ve had this year. A

Beer Nerd Details: 9% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet.

I believe this marks the end of this year’s formally holiday beer, though I do have a few stouts and other wintry seasonals waiting in the wings.

Double Feature: Yet More Holiday Ales

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Yeah, I’ve been a bit of a sucker for Holiday ales this year, probably because I love a good Belgian Strong Dark Ale, of which there are many Holiday variations. As such, I find myself playing Belgian Roulette, picking up beers based solely on the fact that they’re from Belgium and have pretty holiday pictures on the label. Last night, after my Samichlaus adventure, I had a couple of other beers:

Scaldis Noel

Scaldis Noël: I saw this tiny little bottle with the fancy foil wrapping at the store and thought it might be a good idea to play some Belgian Roulette. The bottle only contains about 8.5 ounces, which is quite the odd size for a bottle, but then, it also comes in at a hefty 12% ABV, so I’m actually glad it wasn’t too large. Pours a nice dark amber color with minimal head. Smells a bit boozy, and tastes that way too. It’s sweeter than the Samichlaus and maybe a bit more carbonated, but the flavor isn’t as complex. Indeed, I didn’t really connect with this beer all that much. It’s certainly not bad, but it reminded me a bit of how I felt about Mad Elf, though at least I had the small bottle around this time. B-

Beer Nerd Details: 12% ABV bottled (250 ml). Drank from a tulip glass.

Between beers, I cleansed my palate with a single cashew.

Weyerbacher Winter Ale

Weyerbacher Winter Ale: Not a Belgian, but I picked up a sixer of this and gave a few away to my beer club homies, saving a couple for myself. Pours a clear dark brown color, with about a finger of head that leaves some minimal lacing as I drink. Smells of roasted malts and maybe a bit of spruce. Tastes like it smells, with a dry roastiness coming through strongly, but the spices seem a bit lost. Mouthfeel is good, with solid carbonation and good drinkability. I’m not terribly familiar with Weyerbacher, but I was expecting something a lot stronger and more assertive than this. Instead, I got a pretty decent session beer (technically just a hair stronger than most session beers, but I think it would work fine) and there’s nothing really wrong with that… It actually reminded me of a less complex 2010 Anchor Christmas Ale (which makes a bit of sense, as they’re both classified as “Winter Warmers”). Not a bad beer by any stretch of the imagination, but I would have liked a bit more complexity (it probably didn’t help that I had had two relatively intense monsters before cracking this one open, but still). B

Beer Nerd Details: 5.6% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a goblet.

Well, I’ve nearly exhausted my supply of holiday seasonals, but look for a few more posts before the holiday, and apparently one New Years beer as well (I’m excited for that one, which I totally lucked into without even realizing it – keeping this one a secret for now).

Double Feature: Christmas Ales (Again)

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Last Saturday’s double feature was the unlikely pairing of The Kids Are All Right (a family drama featuring two moms, their half-sibling children, and the sperm donor father!) and Silent Night, Bloody Night (an escaped serial killer dredges up a past tragedy on Christmas Eve). Sometimes when I have a disparate pair of films like this, I’ll find some unexpected similarities, but that’s not really the case here, except perhaps that I think both films are a bit overrated (though both are still good, in their own way).

On the beer side of things, I’m still working my way through recent holiday purchases:

St. Bernardus Christmas Ale

St. Bernardus Christmas Ale – First things firs, I love the label on this. It’s hysterical. It looks like a bad photoshop of the trademark St. Bernardus monk with a Santa hat and some snow. Fortunately, the contents of the bottle are much better than the label. Pours a dark, hazy brown, with a big head. Smell is yeasty with some dark fruits coming through. Mouthfeel is full of carbonation, with lots of dark frutiy flavors. The finish is almost like caramel. Surprisingly drinkable for a 10% ABV beer, I had no problem downing a 750 ml of this… It’s a really fantastic beer, one of the best I’ve had this season. A

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet.

I was quite pleased with the St. Bernardus, but it set a high bar… apparently, too high for my next beer:

Corsendonk Christmas Ale

Corsendonk Christmas Ale – I picked up a 4 pack of this a while ago and I had a couple before last Saturday, but damn, drinking this back-to-back with the St. Bernardus was a bad idea, as St. Bernardus is clearly the superior beer. This isn’t to say that this one is bad, per say, but it simply cannot hold a candle to the St. Bernardus (nor, I suspect, to my other favorite holiday beers). Pours a dark, clear brown color, with a big head. Smells fantastic, citrusy, spicy, and yeasty. It’s a little lighter than the St. Bernardus, and a bit less flavorful. Lots of carbonation, with a lighter, fruity sweetness and a spicy kick at the end, maybe some coriander. The finish is crisp. It’s a decent beer, but not at the top of the holiday seasonals. B

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV bottled (330 ml). Drank from a goblet.

A good night! Still have a few more holiday beers to get through, look for them soon…

Tröegs Mad Elf

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I don’t know, maybe this just isn’t a good year to be drinking beers with “elf” in the name. Not that any were super bad, just that none of them really connected with me. I had high hopes for this one, as I’ve heard many good things, but I found myself disappointed:

Troegs Mad Elf

Tröegs Mad Elf – Pours a light, clear, reddish color, with a relatively small head that dissipates pretty quickly. Smell is a bit fruity and musty. Taste is sweet, with some of that cherry taste, and very boozy. The strong alcohol taste isn’t nearly as well balanced with other flavors as this weekend’s other big holiday brew, Three French Hens, but it’s not out of control (like the Insanely Bad Elf I had on Thursday) either. Carbonation is low, which makes it a relatively smooth drink, but drinking a whole bomber of this gets a bit cloying towards the end. It’s not bad, but I just didn’t connect with it at all. B-

Beer Nerd Details: 11% ABV bottled (22 oz bomber). Drank from a tulip glass.

I’m getting close to the end of my Holiday brews, but I think I’ve got enough to tide me over until Christmas. So far, so good, even if there’ve been a few missteps.

Blood Into Beer: Three French Hens

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I’ve been catching up with 2010 movies lately, and one that I’ve been looking forward to was Blood Into Wine, a documentary about Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan’s winery in Arizona. As a film, it tends to focus more on the personalities involved and their motivations rather than what they produce (though there’s some of that as well). This makes a certain sort of sense, as there’s something fascinating about an already mysterious rock star putting his music career on hold while he jaunts off to make wine.

It’s a very slickly produced film, and it looks fantastic. Some of the sequences are obviously staged (including one embarrassingly stupid scene in a bathroom), but they don’t pretend not to be and it does indicate something about the quirky personalities covered by the film. Keenan has always been a bit impenetrable, so the mixture of fact and fiction makes a certain sense. Arizona is clearly not a haven for wine-producers, and the winery shown in the film is absolutely tiny – kinda like a micro-winery. It’s still a young business, but early indications seem promising. It seems for a moment that the film is gearing up towards a Beer Wars-style (or maybe King of Kong-style) underdog versus monolithic corporation confrontation, but it doesn’t really go that way. The wine world certainly seems competitive, and there are big entities there, but it hasn’t quite reached the epic alcoholic-drink-as-commodity levels that the beer world deals with. As such, all we get are a few other wineries and wine critics who opine on the oddity of an Arizona winery. There are a number of other celebrities that make appearances, such as a hilarious, recurring Tim and Eric interview, Milla Jovovich (Keenan’s coconspirator in music with Puscifer) and Patton Oswalt. In the end, it’s quite entertaining. I don’t particularly love wine though, so I substituted beer for wine whilst watching:

The Bruery - 3 French Hens

The Bruery 3 French Hens: The Bruery is only a few years old at this point, but it’s gained quite a reputation in that time, and from what I’ve seen/tasted, it’s very deserving of all the attention it gets. This beer is the third in a planned 12 year series of beers based on the 12 Days (or should we say Years) of Christmas. You have to respect that sort of audacity, though as I understand it, there’s some controversy about the first couple of years of this (in particular, Partridge in a Pear Tree) being hard to find and thus fetching quite a price on eBay and the like. Regardless, when I saw a bottle of this at the local beer garden, I had to pick it up… It pours a very dark brown, almost black, color. You can only really see it when you hold it up to a light, but when you do, you can see through it (just barely). The head is well proportioned and surprisingly light colored. It also smells a bit lighter than it looks, which I have no problem with, as it smells great. The taste is sweet, a little fruity, and spicy (maybe a little clove), with a bit of a syrupy middle and a nice boozy kick at the end. Sometimes that sorta booziness can overpower a beer (as it did with last night’s Insanely Bad Elf), but in this case, it’s relatively well balanced, and you can get that sort of flavor without being overpowered by it. I think I can also get a bit of that oaked flavor as well, which just adds to the complexity. Overall, it’s an exceptional beer, and something I wish I had the foresight to buy a case of and the willpower to store it for the next ten years. As it is, I guess I should just be happy that this West Coast beer is even available here at all! Now I find myself greatly looking forward to Four Calling Birds. A

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (750 ml, capped bottle). Drank from a goblet.

This is only the second beer I’ve had from The Bruery (the first being Coton, which I thought was amazing, if a bit powerful), but they seem every bit as excellent as their reputation implies, so I’m quite excited to seek out more from them…

Decembeer Club

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Towards the beginning of every month, a bunch of friends from work and I meet up at a local BYOB and bring some new/interesting beers to try. This month’s haul:

Decembeer

It was a mostly holiday ale theme. Conditions aren’t exactly ideal for tasting, so take the following with a grain of salt, but here’s what I thought of each:

  • Affligem Noël: My contribution and one of my favorites of the night. Much like their dubbel, but a little spicier. Great beer that I plan to revisit in more detail this holiday season (I have another bottle on my shelf).
  • Anchor Special Christmas Ale 2010 – My other contribution, I’ve already written about this, but it went over well with other folks too…
  • Delirium Noël: Raisiny and sweet, another popular beer and something I want to revisit in detail.
  • Ridgeway Insanely Bad Elf: Super boozy red ale. Not terrible, but the high alcohol overpowers everything. I’m not sure I could drink a 12 oz bottle of this, but it’s interesting nonetheless…
  • Ridgeway Reindeer’s Revolt – Not as dark as the Delirium, but it shares that certain raisin smell and flavor, a little syrupy sweet too. Not bad.
  • Ridgeway Reindeer Droppings – Doesn’t sound appetizing, but a solid light flavored beer (technically an English Pale Ale). Not a favorite, but a decent session beer.
  • Ridgeway Warm Welcome: A reasonable brown ale, I think this one was overshadowed by some of the above beers.
  • Southern Tier Unearthly IPA – Solid DIPA, but not the top of the line (like Dogfish 90 Minute or Stone IPA)
  • Ridgeway Lump of Coal Stout: I suppose this is a reasonable stout, but there’s nothing special about it and there’s no holiday style to it either. Not offensively bad or anything, but not especially noteworthy either.
  • New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale – Nothing really holiday about this, but a solid session beer (I assume that this is someone’s Yuengling Lager style beer).
  • Unibroue La Fin Du Monde – A first time beer club attendee brought this. Hard to fault him for that, as I love this beer.

Well, that about covers it! Again, not an especially rigorous tasting session, with the palate cleansed by a burger and fries, but still, as always, a really good time. After beer club, a few of us hit up the local beer distributer. It being PA, we could only buy a full case of stuff, but someone became enamored with Anchor’s Christmas ale and bought a case of that, and four of us went in on a St. Bernardus variety pack (each of us got 6 St Bernardus beers, which is pretty awesome). As usual, I’m already looking forward to next month.

The Session and Ommegang Adoration Ale

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The latest edition of The Sessions is today (this is my seccond post in the series), and it’s about unexpected discoveries. Mike over at Burgers and Brews once found great beer in the last place he expected to look, and he wants to here about everyone else’s unexpected discoveries:

Has this happened to you? Maybe you stumbled upon a no-name brewpub somewhere and found the perfect pale ale. Maybe, buried in the back of your local beer store, you found a dusty bottle of rare barleywine. Perhaps a friend turned you on to a beer that changed your mind about a brewery or a style. Write about a beer experience that took you by surprise.

Indeed, I’ve already hinted at my discovery… There was this bar/restaurant in the gleaming metropolis of Norristown, PA called the Moody Monkey. A bunch of friends and I went there for dinner one night and were pleasantly surprised to see a huge beer selection. We were just out of college at the time, and thus were used to the joys of Natty Light and the like, so when handed a gigantic beer menu, we were pretty much lost. Since we had no idea what to order, we opened the menu, closed our eyes, and randomly pointed at the menu. As it turns out, two of us, purely by chance, had selected Ommegang’s Hennepin. It came out in the 750 ml bottle, caged and corked, and pretty much blew our minds. I’d never seen anything like that at the time. When I poured it out, it looked kinda like a “regular” beer, but the taste blew my mind once again. It was a revelation, and while not really my first experience with craft beer, it was the most influential. From that point on, I was ready to explore the beer world, and went out of my way to find other Ommegang brews and I’d always try something new whenever I could. Alas, the Moody Monkey fell on hard times not long after my discovery of Ommegang. I don’t know why, but apparently the owner “forgot” to renew the liquor license, and all of the sudden that fantastic beer selection was gone and it wasn’t long after that that the place had to close down.

But I never forgot Ommegang, and have gone out of my way to find and try every Ommegang beer I could. This was several years ago, and in PA, it’s hard to find places that would sell single bottles of stuff, so I had to buy full cases. I remember paying through the nose, sight unseen (or tasted), for Three Philosophers when it first came out. And I’ve never been disappointed. While I’ve since come to expand my horizons and try all sorts of other beers from other brewers, Ommegang remains one of my favorites (if not my absolute favorite). There was a time, though, where it seemed like the brewery had stalled a bit. They had their usual stable of fantastic year-round brews, but their specialty/seasonal beers were somewhat rare. Lately, they’ve been doing more specialty/seasonal brews though, and tonight, in honor of my original discovery of Ommegang, I decided to try something new:

Ommegang Adoration

Ommegang Adoration Ale – Ommegang’s first holiday ale, a belgian strong dark ale with unusual holiday spices. Pours a deep, cloudy brown (maybe a little red), with a solid head. A little lacing, but not a lot. Smells fantastic. Sweet and spicy, with prominent coriander (apparently a favorite spice of mine) and maybe some yeasty aromas. Taste starts sweet and spicy (again with the coriander), with some fruitiness apparent. Suprisingly drinkable considering the high ABV. Solid carbonation, with a bit of a bite, but I enjoy that sort of thing. It’s a complex beer with lots of flavors, but for something that’s not very subtle, it’s pretty well balanced. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s in the top tier of Ommegang’s offerings, which is nothing to sneeze at… A-

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked bottle). Drank from a goblet

So yet another well balanced Ommegang brew that I’m most likely going to fall back on every year (like I do with a bunch of other Ommegang brews). I’ve also recently come into possession of Ommegang’s Tripel Perfection, which I’ll probably get to soon (look for a post, probably in January).