Westmalle Dubbel

Ah Westmalle, the trappist abbey that gave us the terms dubbel and trippel to describe our beers. Tonight I have decided to review the first and my personal favorite of the trappist dubbels.

The dubbel from Westmalle is incredibly complex, it mixes some nice fruity esters (similar to plum or raisin) with some spice I can't quite put my finger on, along with a wonderful malty characteristic and a little hoppiness in the end it really shines out as a bacon of what the Belgian's can accomplish in their brewing.

One of my favorite characteristics of this brew is also a favorite of mine with good wines (reds mainly,) the temperature it is served at has a profound effect on it's flavor. Refrigerator temps tend to make it taste sharper bring out a little more of the hop characteristics and move the malts and fruity esters aside. When you let a glass of this sit for a little while two wonderful things happen, 1 the glass warms and it allows the flavors to meld, 2 the beer oxidizes a little and brings out the spice more. My serving suggestion is to get yourself a nice chalice style glass, or at least something with a nice wide mouth, pour it trying to leave a little at the bottom (this is a bottle conditioned brew and there are active yeast as well as something called trub that lies on the bottom) and just let it sit for maybe 5 minutes. I know 5 minutes seems like a long time but your mouth will thank me.

As far as the yeast and trub go, I for one kind of like the flavor it brings but many people do not. My suggestion for dealing with it is to try leaving it at the bottom of the bottle, then once you finish your glass pour the remainder in and give it a taste, that way you can decide for yourself. the yeast and trub are not harmful in anyway, in fact brewer's yeast is rather good for you, well at least hippies think so and they brought us granola so who knows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_yeast#Nutritional_supplements

Grimbergan Dubbel

Another Belgian...

Grimbergan was an abbey in Belgum famous for well... getting destroyed, in the 1500's it was a casulty of a local war. The abbey has been rebuilt and restored since.

If I say this once I'll say it a million times, monks know how to make a mean brew.  I love abbey beers and Trappists and I'm sure you will be seeing quite a few reviews of them on here.  My story with this beer goes back to one of the first time's I have gone to The Sharp Edge, I wanted something nice a smooth and this was reccomended to me.  I recently found a distributer in my area up at Save on Beer in Cranberry, great selection.  I grabbed this on my way home to go watch the AFC championship game, Steelers vs Ravens.  I had only had this on tap before so it was refreshing to find that the bottle wasn't far off in flavor.  The pour is nice with an off white head and nice lacing left behind.  This beer is smooth it goes down as easy as a glass of milk.  Since this brew is a brown you can expect a nice malty backbone with chocolate and carmel flavors in there too with just a hint of fruityness.  I think I chilled mine for a bit too long as the flavor and nose got better as it warmed up although I've noticed this when I get it at the bar as well.  I have a certian fondness for this beer, I think it may be how smooth it is.  This is my regular when I get out to The Sharp Edge while there are many choices out there this is the one I tend to fall back on the most, when I'm not in the mood for something new this is like an old favorite blanket something you just wanna curl up with from time to time and forget about everything else.