Angry bird

There's a furious looking parrot on my bottle of Papegaei tripel, its rage sufficient to permeate the glass and cause the beer to foam violently as soon as the cap came off. It's a dark gold colour and surprisingly unfizzy, given what went before. Though a reasonable 8% ABV it's very heavy and the alcohol heat is the centrepiece of the flavour. Where you might expect honey or spice complexities there's only a very unsubtle honeydew sweetness which adds a sickliness to both taste and aroma.

This is a beer with few redeeming features, then. It appears to be the only product of "Browerij Verstraete", though contract brewed by someone else. In Belgium it seems that nothing can stand in the way of a man's dream to have his name on a mediocre tripel with a disgruntled tropical bird on the label.