Tripel the fun

I was fortunate to get to visit the Westmalle brewery a couple of years ago. The most unusual thing I noticed was how this otherwise quite normal industrial-sized brewery only ever makes three beers, and most of that is just one beer: Westmalle Dubbel. In amongst the canyons of brown crates in the cellars there's only the occasional patch of cream or pale blue, for Tripel and Extra.

Now the two lesser siblings have got together to create a new draught product: Westmalle Duo. It's a 60/40 blend of the pair, and I guess the idea is to deliver the complexity of Westmalle Tripel at a more approachable strength. Still, it's 7.2% ABV, so I wouldn't exactly deem it a session beer.

In Dublin I found it on tap at The Porterhouse, a pub that has been known to serve draught Westmalle Dubbel by the pint, albeit not any time recently. Duo is a bright gold and completely clear. The aroma is unmistakably that of a golden Belgian ale, exuding fruit and flowers in colourful abundance. It leans fully into that in the flavour, almost too much so, with oodles of very ripe melon, pear, lychee and similar pale and sweet juicy fruits. This is perfumed up with lavender and jasmine top notes, plus a sprinkling of Westmalle Tripel's pithy spices.

It has been a while since I last drank either of the component beers, but this did not seem at all like a compromise between them. The dilution of the alcohol has not in any way diluted the taste. Draught serving also results in a lighter carbonation, which may be why the flavour seems so pronounced. There's also plenty of slick and smooth body to give it a long and luxurious finish.

My assumption that this is a slightly cynical attempt at extending Westmalle's share of throat (shudder) remains, but it is still a superb beer. It's perfect for that one last one of the night, when you want the big flavour and the heft, and maybe there's nothing suitable in the venue's small-pack selection. I don't know how many Irish pubs will be willing to keep a 7.2% ABV on draught, though. I wish we could fix that.

Cry wolf

I've seen ads for Lupulus from Les 3 Fourquets in many a Belgian pub, its sad grey wolf pup staring balefully at the drinker. The brewery designates it as an "Ardennes Tripple" [sic] leaving me wondering whether I'm supposed to be measuring it against La Chouffe or Westmalle Tripel. It's not very much like either, really, being all hot sweet candy to begin with, tasting much stronger than its 8.5% ABV. At the last minute there's a peppery piquancy which swings in and saves it, but its still not one I'd go running back to.

And just to get it out of my notebook while we're in the Low Countries, De Molen Hamer & Sikkel, a 5.1% ABV porter. I wanted to like this but it's a bit of a mess, all homebrewy yeasty flavours blocking any nice chocolate or coffee porter notes. A rare misstep in the dark beers from Bodegraven's finest.

Belgium and the Netherlands are fantastic beer producing countries in general, but into every drinking life the occasional dud must fall.

Thanks, Hank

My goat is one of the easily-got breeds. The beer world and how it's described seems to have an inexhaustable supply of terms and trends to wind me up. Until recently, one of them was the style designation "Belgian Quadrupel", or worse: "Belgian Quad". While Westmalle brought us dubbel and tripel in the 1930s, quadrupel is a Dutch invention: there were no Belgian "Belgian quads". Until, as I say, recently.

De Halve Maan in Bruges were the first ones I noticed to spoil my indignation, with Straffe Hendrik Brugs Quadrupel. It's 11% ABV and the same dark brown-red as any quadrupel, with a thin layer of ivory foam on top. The aroma is an almost salty waft of dried figs and engine grease. Lots of sweetness on tasting: chocolate syrup, juicy prunes and a pleasant burn, like with fortified wine. And yet it's not overly hot or sticky: the flavours present themselves in a mannerly order and leave just when you're done with them.

A highly enjoyable dessert beer, this. Belgian Quadrupel: you are forgiven.

More prosaically, there's a tripel too: Straffe Hendrik Brugs Tripel. A style-compliant 9% ABV and a fairly normal orange-gold colour, with generous quantities of yeasty gobbets in suspension. I get weissbier-ish clove and orange peel from the aroma and bang-on spice, fizz 'n' booze from the flavour. The most amazing thing is that this has been sitting in my fridge for at least two years and still tastes daisy-fresh. Westmalle Tripel does not do that, I can assure you.

I visited Halve Maan back in 2006 and took away a memory of a visitors' centre that brewed two forgettable beers and outsourced their flagship to someone else. Looks like that may have changed.

Tripel-blind tasting

Like any good connoisseur of anything, I do like to occasionally calibrate my preferences now and again with a bit of blind tasting, mostly just to satisfy myself that something other than naked snobbery informs my tastes. Over the past few months I've built up a small collection of tripels and recently I took the time to have them set up incognito for tasting.

The main point of the testing centred on Leffe Tripel: I tend to blithely deride the Leffe range as being ersatz factory-made versions of proper Belgian beer, but does that stand up to scrutiny? Obviously a genuine Trappist had to go in the mix for contrast, and I chose Westmalle Tripel, which I believe to be my favourite. From the abbey beers I took Bosteels Tripel Karmaliet -- an old reliable -- and Maredsous Tripel by big boys Duvel-Mortgaat, one I'd liked on the only previous occasion I'd tasted it. Finally I needed a wild card, a tripel I'd never had before and knew nothing about. This quest was answered by Tripel Horse, extra wild card points for being not Belgian, but from the River Horse brewery in New Jersey.

Expectations were that Westmalle would come out on top, Leffe would be a thin shadow of the others, and the American would be way off the mark. As usual, pleasingly, this isn't what happened.

The first thing to say is that, although the beers were discernably different, they were all recognisably tripels: all had the powerful boozy heat (ABVs ranged from 8 to 10), the heavy sugary body and the spicy Belgian complexity. It was the minor differences in these elements that set them apart.

My least favourite was far and away the palest in colour with much more fizz than the others. The nose was incredibly sweet with an artificial syrup thing going on. It tasted heavily of cheap ginger ale and was drinkable but not very enjoyable over all. Amazingly, this turned out to be Tripel Karmaliet. Mrs Beer Nut liked it for its subtle floral notes and ranked it second; the best I can say is that I later got used to it. None went to waste.

Second-last was the haziest, with the biggest head of foam. It was the sweetest of the lot, reeking of dark sugar and with a big banana flavour among the spices, something I consider a flaw in the Belgian-style ales I've made myself. There's a certain balance to it, but mostly it tastes like tripel-by-numbers, made without the attentions of a caring brewer. No surprise here that it turned out to be Leffe Tripel.

Right in the middle there was another fairly heavy-going one, the darkest in colour with very little head or sparkle. Not so much spice or fruit here, just lots of heat and a hint of marker pens. Tripel isn't supposed to be an easy drinking style, so most of this can be forgiven, leaving a serious and heady sipper. This was the wife's favourite: Maredsous Tripel.

Which leaves the Trappist and the American vying for the top spot. Knock me down with a feather if Westmalle Tripel didn't come second. The aroma of this was gorgeous: subtle perfume, masking any hot sugary booze smells. The spices are to the fore on tasting: there's a hoppy bite at the front which is a little harsh, but then fades to allow lavender and cloves through. Beautiful, but not as nice as...

... Tripel Horse. Another powerhouse like the Maredsous at 10% ABV, but doesn't really show signs of all that alcohol. Instead it has zest: a zingy aroma followed by lemons and mandarins on the palate for an invigorating refreshing effect, enhanced by a vigorous sparkle. The finish is sweet and sugary, but not in an unpleasant cloying way -- sweet and lip-smacking instead. Would I have credited it as an American take on a Belgian style? Never in a million beers.

And then there was the unpleasant business of disposing of the guts of five bottles of tripel. It's hard work this blind tasting lark, but rewarding nonetheless.

White geese

The beers of Goose Island are usually fairly recognisable, with their distinct logo and the name of the brewery in big letters. I'm not sure whether the white label Belgian-style ales are simply reflective of creativity, or if they're trying to pass these off as something other than your friendly neighbourhood goose.

The tripel (er, or not: see comments) in the set is called Matilda and pours a pale amber colour with very little by way of head, after the initial surprise of pouring this sort of beer from a screwtop bottle. That it's made with a Belgian yeast strain is immediately abundantly clear from the spicy aroma coming straight off the top. Expecting complexity, I was surprised at what happened next. The taste isn't much like a tripel at all. It's a touch thin and the dominant flavour is tannic. More than anything else it reminds me of sweet, slightly lemony, tea. It's quite a simple beer when it comes down to it, and I liked it for that.

The matching dubbel in the range is called Pere Jacques. It's appropriately dark, though like Matilda there's worryingly little sediment in it. They haven't bothered with the soft carbonation and thick foam of a Belgian dubbel, opting instead for decapitation and prickly fizz. Caramel and sherry dominate the aroma, and flavourwise we're talking nutmeg, molasses, plums -- all the usual stuff you would expect in a real Belgian dark ale, just without the weighty treacle body. Which, frankly, is a shame.

I paid over the odds for this pair (so did Reuben, for at least one). They're good, but they're not better than the Abt 12s, Tripel Karmeliets and Westmalles of this world, despite carrying a much heftier price tag.