Pouring a brown-red in colour with a rapidly collapsing head, the yeasty, stewed fruit aromas give way to a lightly spiced and hop-dried flavour. The hop dryness continues into the finish, which may be this beer's most appealing feature.
Lacking in complexity due to some less than stellar yeast strains, I suspect, but far from unpleasant.
64
This triple-fermented beer delivers one of the crudest pours you're ever likely to encounter, with fat flakes of yeast spattering unappealingly into the glass.
This is clearly a brewery trait, as the Nöel beer from Abbaye des Rocs I uncapped recently plopped chunks of three-dimensional yeast into my glass with such vigour that the brew slopped over its edge. Visions of Mr. Armitage and Mr. Shanks overcame me, and the unappealing beverage was hastily emptied down the sink. Perhaps such yeast-saturated brews are quaffed by Belgian beer enthusiasts with the same sort of relish that capsaicinoid addicts seek out those chillies with the highest Scoville rating as a signifier of their dedication and enthusiasm. To them I say: good luck. Personally, I'd rather not drink something that looks like it was bottled at the local sewage plant.
As for the beer itself: overpowering malt drowns out the hops, and an unbalanced sweetness makes for a singularly claggy experience on the palate. Mouth-feel, however, is rather pleasant and the beer drinks smoothly for its strength. However, I can't see myself picking up another bottle of this any time soon. Not without a blindfold, anyway.
40
