From a bottle trade, though I've since had it at WF tastings. It doesn't have a strong typical Belgian character with all the candi sugar and spices and such. It's much more of a plain golden with a notable pils hop character with some extra white wine astringency on the back.
From a bottle sale from earlier in the summer. I had a great tripel from Straffe Hendrik last summer so I was stoked to try some more stuff. This is pretty damn good. A bit of chocolate in the nose. Rich, decadent malts; molasses; dense fruit like raisin and prune, with a slightly tannic and hop bitter finish. A late toffee and coffee finish.
BA reviewers are funny sometimes. I read some that gave low marks because it was too boring, to textbook. To be fair, this is a solid quad. No, it's not amazingly unique. Yes, it's pricier than your average 22oz/750ml. What are you expecting? Be appreciated that they can nail the style, at least. That's my beef with the BA scoring, a one-dimensional number to compress a 5/6-dimensional tasting. If a beer nails the style but is nothing special, some people rate it low while others rate high. Sometimes, people like a beer because it's different and rate it high, even if it may not represent the style very well. What do?
Also, I'm not very consistent with the use of my "belgian" tag. Oh well.
The other Triple Voodoo offering I picked up on sale. Really watery/thin tasting, not much malt, a bitter spice, and a little hot. Not very pleasant at all. What's up with this?
I didn't rotate some of these. Whatever.
Saw a couple bottles from this little local brewery on sale so I picked them up. Not a whole lot of ratings for them on BA; in fact, these are the only two beers they have apparently.
I am pleasantly surprised. This is a nice malty, spicy Belgian strong pale. The mild hop bittering plays well with the spices (maybe cardamom, cinnamon, ginger?) and persists with just enough presence on the finish. The mouthfeel is really nice
Overall, I do like this beer, though it could be a bit dangerous at 8%ABV. We'll see how fast it actually ends up going down and whether it's too filling afterward. In other news, I'm going to keep things casual until I finally get caught up on my backlog of drafts. Many are just waiting for a picture, which I do not have with me here, so I don't know if I'll just push them out and edit later or what. So maybe I won't get caught up until the winter. Ho hum.
Second installation from the Longshot. A viscous, vinous-looking pour into a pint glass. First sip: ugh. What the hell happened here? It is very malty sweet, slightly unripened fruit, and cloying even though it's not a refined sweetness. Supposedly, this guy loves hops and he loves spicy Belgian ales. This has neither. There is some dark ale maltiness in the nose, but the taste is bordering on sour. To be honest, this seems to be either underfermented. or extremely young. Or maybe that sourness is supposed to be a mega-citrus component, but I'm just not feeling it. The more that I think about it, it tastes like some other Belgian-styled beer I had recently, but knows what the name was. Maybe this is just one of those beers.
I wanted to like it, I really did. But there's something not balanced out here. If they said to put some age on it, I would. I'm really missing the hops that were supposed to be in here, too. What gives? I don't even want to finish this bottle. It'd be well enough to piece out for a tasters, but what is it supposed to represent? For sure, this is a higher ABV at 9%, but if that's all you're getting, I'd be happier drinking a bourbon or gin.
