Trappistes Rochefort 10
This was my original note from September 8, 2003. I still think this is an accurate impression of this beer, so I am leaving it. The scores don't change: Ok, ok. This is darker than it's siblings. Stand aside! It bears within it an aroma of latex paint, baked pavement, fruit pie and Puerto Rican rice. Amazing! Caramel/mocha milkshake flavors dominate the piney, forest floor heathen qualities. The pinnacle of the series, utterly natural, rocky, liqueur-like, creamy and dense. What a loss, all of those denied this pleasure. ___ Now today, I would write the review like this: There is an admirable effort to maintain a sheet of various-colored foam : "mocha" is one of the colors. The aromas describe top-notch grappa and raisins, macerated together. There is also an aggressive smell of nuts, graphite and flint. On the palate it is woody and intense. I'm still getting a Seafood Rice thing in the flavors (Imagine a cauldron filled with oyster shells, saffron and rice. I assume this is a testament to the mineral content of the water here.) While alcohol drives a unkind pace through the flavor development (in contrast to a Southampton Grand Cru or Westvleteren 8, for example -- both of which stall delightfully on the palate to reveal even more bounty than one bargained for -- "cadence") it is a thrilling, 12-cylinder power which humbles the senses -- sort of like St. Sixtus yellow cap. The fine prickle of gas, laughing madly before the alcohol executioner, keeps the pace and makes the flavors come alive. These are the images that appear on the palate: vanilla, birch bark, poppy seed paste, grade B coffee, licorice and earth. These Quadrupels are rarely appropriate and always a little hard to cozy up to, but nothing else in life approximates the sense of danger and possibility contained in them.