Tripel 3: Tripel Karmeliet by Brouwerij Bosteels

Back in July I sampled a Belgian Triple called Triple 5 from New Glarus and pronounced it not my kind of thing despite having been brewed with five different grains and we all know how tasty those are. My distaste owed to the beer’s rather prominent astringency. It had this bitter acidity that was just too harsh for my poor tongue. Not long afterwards, I ran into a Belgian Tripel, that is, a Belgian beer actually from Belgium, that seemed oddly familiar to me. I was attracted to the label which featured a couple people out in a field harvesting grain.

Grain is good! Grain is right. Grain works. Grain clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the brewing spirit. Grain, in all of its forms -- grain for beer, for spirits, for bread, money -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. It’s the sine non qua of beer, after all. I like grain. More grain, please. Well, this beer delivers as it boasts three grains - barley, oats and wheat.

Wait.

That’s just two shy of Triple 5’s five grains! That’s we Americans for you. Always with the more is better routine.

Was the multi-grain tripel a tried and true brew over in the land where the saxophone was invented or did Dan Carey find inspiration from this very beer? I have no idea but I was presented with an opportunity to try a native Belgian beer and compare and contrast it with its American cousin and I took it.

The beer I stumbled upon was Tripel Karmeliet by Bosteels Brewery in northern Belgium. The name is Dutch for “Triple Carmelite”, with Carmelite being a Roman Catholic order. Bosteels says Tripel Karmeliet’s recipe dates to 1679 and was rescued from a Carmelite convent. I wonder if its recovery was like Sir Galahad’s attempt to recover the Holy Grail from Castle Anthrax. Did the Bosteels brewer have to bravely fend off a bunch of comely maidens to get the recipe?

New Glarus’ beer may have had Bosteels outnumbered in the grain department but Bosteels put New Glarus to shame with the fizz. Tripel Karmeliet’s label says it gets a final fermentation in the bottle and boy did it ever. There was some extreme fizz in my glass in the form of a gigantic (for beer) white head that kept growing as I poured like Alice after eating the cake. Once I got that cleared up, I found some lovely light gold beer that was hazy, but only just. In the middle of the liquid was a column of bubbles rushing upwards in a frenzy. I don’t know that I have ever seen a beer quite so kinetic as this one.

I smelled wheat with a berry-like fruitiness on top of it. Some grassy hop aroma was there too.

Unsurprisingly, I tasted a lot of carbonation when I took my first sip. But underneath all of those bubbles was a rather smooth brew, no doubt owing to the oats. It had a medium body and was rather sweet – honey-like. There was also some fruit flavor that reminded me of apricot. For the finish I found a modicum of herbal hop bitterness, some lingering sweetness, and, as with Triple 5, a whole lot of that boozy (8.4% A.B.V.) tasting astringency which helped make it end on a very dry note. Also, the lacing was really nice.

While not quite as astringent as its American cousin, it was still too much for my tongue and I felt bad as it was probably asking why my brain hadn’t learned its lesson the first time around. I rather liked the grainy taste and the gentle stone fruit flavors that went along with it. But the whole paint stripper aspect of the beer’s taste just didn’t do it for me.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Tripel Karmeliet with a bag of Old Dutch Cheddar & Sour Cream potato chips. All of that grease and those creamy flavors will help mellow the harshness of the beer.