Belgian and Belgian-style beers have, for reasons that are not entirely clear, an air of refinement about them that other beers lack. At
least for me. Maybe it's because sophistos at trendier establishments drink the
stuff out of chalices and goblets instead of simple pint glasses and this makes
them appear aristocratic.
Another factor is that I've seen breweries make a big to-do
over them in a way they don't other, perhaps more plebian, styles. Take
Sprecher, for instance. They have a German name and a reputation for making excellent
Central European brews like Vienna lagers and Schwarzbiers. So what did they
brew for their 30th anniversary? Why a Belgian quad, of course. A couple
years later they released the Belgian Progression Pack with 4 types of Belgian
ales: an enkel, a dubbel, a tripel, and a quad. A year or so later they opened
the cellar and unleashed a blueberry lambic on us.
And then there's New Glarus. Remember when their Belgian Red and
other Belgian-style fruit beers came in wine bottles? The quotidian stuff came
in 12oz bottles but you could only buy the Belgian brews in milliliters because
the metric system is for civilized people. While today you get Belgian Red in
12oz bottles, they only come in 4-packs because they're still special, I guess. And
they have a whole cave system for aging the Belgian beers that Werner Herzog could
make a documentary about. "Are we today the drinkers who look back into
the abyss of time when we see the bottles of Belgian ales?"
Adding to the mystique of Belgian beers is the complexity of
making them. A brewer must age them so that detritus from the air sours them
just right and endows the beer with funkadelic flavors that would lead a casual
beer drinker to think it was skunk. Sometimes fruit is involved and in other
instances fresh batches are blended with those that have been carefully aging
in a vast cave system that requires a degree in spelunking to manage. This may
not be rocket science but it's still something of a Daedalean endeavor.
While I have always appreciated Belgian styles, it's generally been from a distance. A chalice here or a snifter there but never too many
nor too often lest people think I am some kind of beer snob. (Ahem – ed). However,
I think I've had more Belgian-style beers this year than I've had in the
previous…previous…well, few…several. I don't know exactly. And this is not to
say that I've quaffed dozens and dozens of 'em. Let's see, there was Wit TF by
Hinterland, Allagash White, and a couple three New Glarus brews. Now I can add
another New Glarus notch to the headboard – Triple 5.
Released back in February, this beer has a real oddball name
that pairs number types. It just sounds wrong to have a multiplicative number followed
by a cardinal one and that's all. Triple 5 whats? Where's the noun? Well, the
bottle tells you that it is a Belgian triple that was brewed from 5 grains: barley,
white wheat, oats, brown rice and corn. Mystery solved. But it also engenders a
new conundrum for me: what is a Belgian triple?
"Tripel" is more correct, I suppose. I've always
just assumed that these number indicator thingies were simply a measure of alcohol
content so your tripel had more alcohol in it than an enkel or dubbel but less
than a quad. Each of these can be dark or pale, depending on brewer preference.
At least that's what I've gathered.
The flavor foundation was a medium dose of caramel
sweetness. Atop that rode yeasty flavors of banana and bubblegum (but no clove
that I could detect). There was a gentle overall fruitiness to it that didn't
seem to be akin to a particular fruit and what my notes say is an
"indeterminate grain" taste. I guess those 5 cereals ended up making
some kind of grainy gestalt flavor. Swallowing the beer brought out some spicy
hop bitterness which made things pretty dry. I could also taste the alcohol –
this stuff is 9% - which contributed to a fairly strong astringency.
All of those grains gave the beer a medium body and a
healthy dose of sweetness but there was enough fizz to cut through it and keep
my tongue from being bogged down in a lightly treacly kind of thing. I liked the
nebulous fruitiness and all of the banana and bubblegum flavors from the yeast.
But the astringent taste was a little too much for me. I think it would have
been more palatable had it not been as strong but, as it was, it just didn't
sit well next to gentle phenols and laid back esters.
Junk food pairing: I had tacos for dinner after my sampling
so I suggest pairing Triple 5 with a bag of taco flavor Doritos. But make sure they come in that retro bag that looks like 70's shag carpeting.
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