La Fin Du Monde
What can I say? It's "the end of the world". I haven't seen a better example of a Belgian tripel anywhere outside of Belgium. The appearance is the only thing I am not a fan of. Considering the amount of excitement that I get out of corking a bottle of this brew, pouring it into a glass leaves me a tad disappointed. The head is short lived with relatively huge bubbles, and the color frankly makes me think of urinalysis test jars. However, that is where the problems end! I want to offer this beer to a blind person to see whether or not their other senses make it even better than it already is. The smell is as close to perfection as I can imagine. No words appropriately describe this, but if I had to use nasal experiences as adjectives, I would choose stomped grapes, freshly cut grass with notes of that first rain of late summer. The taste follows the same, but there is the slightest bit of astringency at the end. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It really is dependent on serving temperature. The last few sips out of my pilsner glass are warmer because of my hand, and that is where the tiniest bit of off-flavor jumps out. Still, with a 4.5 in that category, you can see that it is almost entirely negligible. The mouthfeel isn't the greatest thing ever; because of the large bubbles it doesn't flow to the back of the tongue as well as a true Belgian, but the flavor itself masks this "problem" extremely well. A 4 is the worst score I could imagine giving it. As for drinkability, it is just amazing that this is a 9% ABV brew. Very few strong beers mask their alcohol this well. The only one I can think of off-hand is Widmer's Braggot, which is a vastly inferior brew to this (although good in its own right). Obviously this isn't something I would be able (or afford) to sit down and drink all night, but I'll be damned if it doesn't disappear with startling celerity. If I may say so, I believe Unibroue (and this beer in particular) is the greatest thing to come out of Quebec, with Georges St. Pierre being the second greatest. :) EDIT: I guess I'm not the only one who thinks the color is "pissy", based on the review before mine. Ha! Still, not a big deal.