Orval (6.5% ABV)

A further Trappist offering from a brewery that offers a single commercial product, and boy, is it a good one.

Orval pours as a strikingly orange coloured brew, with a delicate, minimal head that nevertheless endures, great lacing down the glass, and a wonderful mouth-feel.

The orange and coriander seed nose continues into a gentle citrus profile of tangerines and sour candy peel supported by layer after layer of yeast complexity, with a mouth-watering finish. This beer exhibits complexity by the malt-shovel, and is a world-class beer by any standards. I feel somewhat bereft at not having another bottle in the house.

There is something of a cult of aging Orval for a year, with snootier bars offering young and aged versions. This all seems a little odd to me, as you could do the same thing with any number of Belgian beers to good effect, being both bottle-conditioned and being sufficiently strong to contain sufficient sugars for the yeast to continue to act upon and thereby alter the characteristics of the brew. A bit of a shrug, therefore, from me on that front.

For the record, as the brewery plays up to this somewhat and puts a date if bottling and BB date on each label, I drank this Orval when it was 6 months old.

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