As my cold is subsiding, I decided to head out to Nikki’s last night for the weekly tasting. This week was Belgian Tripels, with a nice lineup of beers. Since there were a lot of them, I’ll only mention my favorites (won’t be actual reviews because I didn’t get enough of each of each for the full effect). The first one of the night was Witkap Pater Tripel. I liked this one. It was clear, which was different since most have the yeast still in the bottle, and it was nice and crisp. The next one was St. Feuillien Tripel. This one was also on the crisp side, but had some different flavors to it. I also liked this one. The other ones I liked (and the only thing I can say about them is that they were more like the other Tripels I’ve had) were Westmalle Trappist Tripel, Chimay Tripel, Koningshoven La Trappe Tripel (which is actually from the Netherlands, and has a taste somewhere between a Tripel and a Quadrupel). Finally, there was Gouden Carolus, which is a very different Tripel. It’s a bit smoother than the others and has some nice flavors to it.
The others were St. Bernardus Tripel (the highest rated Tripel on Beer Advocate), Kasteelbier Blond (at 11%, this one actually had an alcohol taste to it), and Val-Dieu Tripel (there was also Trappist Achel, but we didn’t get any of that for some reason). I wasn’t crazy about any of those.
Afterwards, a bottle of Allagash Curieux (Bourbon Barrel-Aged Tripel) was broken out. This was my favorite of the night. I would have bought a bottle, except for it’s $16 price tag. It had a nice oak flavor mixed in with all the other flavors of the Tripel. It was really nice.
Now that my cold is just about gone, I’ll most likely be getting back to my beer-of-the-day type posts in another day or so (or perhaps tonight depending on how I’m feeling).