Triple A

Not anti aircraft artillery, but the beer style. I am not limiting myself to Belgians either. Over the last couple of weeks I have been drinking an unusual number of Tripel's and Triples. I am not really a big fan of the beer style as I don't really like the coriander and funky fusal alcohol tastes which define the style. Some people describe these flavours as complex, but they aren't really and are more artifacts of sloppy brewing techniques and warm fermentation's. Anyway Here is a list of the beers that I had;

- Westmalle Trappist Tripel 9.5%

- Brakspear Triple 7.2%

- La Trappe Tripel 8%

- Kasteel Triple 11%

OK the Brakspear beer has nothing to do with the Belgian offerings and had a really nice almost sultana style sweetness and chocolate nuttiness that was really nice. I actually ate some Cadbury's Fruit and Nut with this one - it was a good match for all you food and beer pairer's.

Actually the Brakspears Triple was remarkable similar to two Belgian Bruin ales I had;

- Trappist Achel Bruin 9.5%

- Gordon Finest Scotch Highland Ale 8.6% (this is actually Belgian!)

So there we have it, a bit of a consolidated ticker post. To summarize - Belgian Tripel's were pretty shit, most of the Kasteel one went down the sink. The Brakspears Triple and the Belgian Bruins were nice - even though they had rather extreme abv's. I should note that I had a few BrewDog punk IPA's last week and appreciated the weakness and sessionability of it's 'modest' 6% abv.