St. Bernardus Tripel
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(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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“Bringing heavenly nectar within reach”
– from the back of the St. Bernardus Tripel
For Easter, I decided to head back to Belgium for an abbey ale. Beer produced by monks, I reasoned, would be quite appropriate for the holiday — and, at least in taste, St. Bernardus Tripel rose to the occasion.
But St. Bernardus isn’t produced by monks at all. Technically, this is an “abbey-style” ale.
I’m not alone in my confusion. Many people think of St. Bernardus as a Trappist brewery. And the confusion may be justified, because — for more than 45 years — St. Bernardus licensed the Trappist name to produce beer.
St. Bernardus was founded in the early 1900′s when monks from Catsberg Abbey in France set up a Belgian annex to wait out an anti-clerical movement. These monks converted a farm near the town of Watou into “Refuge Notre Dame de St. Bernard”, which produced cheese (not beer) and financed the abbey’s activities in France. The monks returned to a more hospitable France in 1934, selling the farm and cheese factory to private, secular industry.
The new owner expanded the factory, built a brewery, and in 1946 landed a contract with the Trappist monks of St. Sixtus in Westvleteren. St. Bernardus produced and commercialized the Saint Sixtus ale under the Westvleteren name — but the contract expired without renewal in 1992 because the Trappists needed to protect the integrity of their brand. They decreed that only beers brewed within the walls of a Trappist monastery could use the official “Trappistenbier” logo.
St. Bernardus continued to brew its own line of beer, and many cafes and pubs continued to describe it as a Trappist ale. The label surely fed the confusion — officially, the bald-headed man on the label isn’t a monk, but a jolly fellow in “medieval robes”…
Enough history, let’s taste it:
The St. Bernardus Tripel came in a large, 25 oz corked and caged bottle. Despite very carefully removing the cork, foam rushed from the neck seconds after the resounding “POP”. The eruption made my bottle into “Mount St. Bernardus”, and I caught as much of the foam as I could in a chalice. No wonder they recommend wide-mouthed glasses!
The beer poured a lot darker than I expected it to be, more orange-gold or amber than the golden tripels I’ve had in the past. Even after the forceful eruption, this beer had a nice, thick white head that faded after saying its hellos.
For aroma, this seemed a subdued tripel. Orange and sweet fruits were present in the nose, but very little candy sugar and just enough spice to be present. This chilled beer had a pleasant “warm” aroma profile.
The taste was lightly bitter and citrusy — a kind of orange zest, but again without the candy sugar sweetness found in many tripels. There’s sweet malt and fruity apricot to balance the soft hops, it has a soft and carbonated mountfeel, and the beer finishes fairly dry with a lightly bitter aftertaste.
To me, this was an interesting and enjoyable tripel but not my favorite. It has an 8% ABV rating, so the huge bottle was nearly too much for me — an 11.2 oz bottle would have been plenty!
St. Bernardus is a member of the Belgian Family Brewers association, and my bottle was imported by D&V International of Palm Beach Gardens, FL.
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2 Comments
April 19th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Good to have you back Andy!
Nothing will top their Abt 12 ‘eh? I’m with ya there. I enjoyed this tripel as well, but not my fave of the style. But still very good.
If you had to list your Top 3 tripels, what would they be?
April 19th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I haven’t yet tried the Abt 12 — saving that one up for a later date, after hearing so much about it from Chris @ 52brews.com. As for my favorite tripels, I still have a few more to try before I weigh in — but Chimay White is currently at the top of my list.
Also need to write a post declaring my favorite of the Trappist ales. But writing for this project is like drinking from a fire hose…