Deep golden to light amber colour. Off-white head. Well-lacing. Aroma: honey, old hops, malts. Medium body. Taste: light to medium sweet, malty, hoppy. Grapefruit bitterness. Below expectations.

12 ounce bottle into signature chalice, best before 12/22/2018. Pours fairly hazy/cloudy medium orange/amber color with a 1 finger dense and rocky cream colored head with great retention, that reduces to a small cap that lingers. Nice dense soapy lacing clings on the glass, with fair amount of streaming carbonation. Aromas of red grapefruit, tangerine, lemon, peach, pear, pineapple, apricot, red apple, passion fruit, mango, melon, berry, citrus peel/rind, peppercorn, pine, caramel, cracker, toasted biscuit, and herbal/floral/grassy earthiness. A bit too malty/muddy aromas. Nice and pleasant aromas with good balance and complexity of citrus/fruity/tropical/earthy hops, fruity yeast, and dark/bready malt notes; with solid strength. Taste of red grapefruit, tangerine, lemon, peach, pear, pineapple, apricot, red apple, passion fruit, mango, melon, berry, citrus peel/rind, peppercorn, pine, caramel, cracker, toasted biscuit, and herbal/floral/grassy earthiness. Light-moderate pine, citrus peel/rind, herbal, floral, grassy, peppery bitterness on the finish. Lingering notes of red grapefruit, tangerine, lemon, peach, pear, pineapple, apricot, red apple, passion fruit, mango, melon, berry, citrus peel/rind, peppercorn, pine, caramel, cracker, toasted biscuit, and herbal/floral/grassy earthiness on the finish for a good bit. Great complexity, robustness, and balance of citrus/fruity/tropical/earthy hops, fruity yeast, and dark/bready malt flavors; with a great malt/bitterness balance, and no lingering hop astringency after the finish. Light-moderate increasing dryness from lingering bitterness. Medium carbonation and body; with a very smooth, moderately creamy/bready/sticky, and fairly resinous/rindy balanced mouthfeel that is great. Minimal warming alcohol for 6.5%. Overall this is a very nice fruited English IPA. All around nice complexity, robustness, and balance of citrus/fruity/tropical/earthy hops, fruity yeast, and dark/bready malt flavors; very smooth and easy to drink with the mellowly bitter/resinous/drying finish, not aggressive. Nice balance of juicy/dank/earthy Citra hops and ruby red grapefruit; with a balanced bready English malt backbone. Mild residual sweetness with lingering resin dryness. A very enjoyable offering, and well made style example. Was probably better fresher.

Pours hazy blood orange into a trappist glass. Bright white head with medium retention recedes to hug rim. Sweet citrus aromas. Bitter pith and grapefruit peel front to back. Not much else.

The second fruit beer from the trappist monks in Spencer, Massachusetts, a fruit IPA this time - about as surprising as their Juicy IPA, in seeking connection with contemporary trends rather than building on the traditional European trappist beer styles, a trend they already began to display when they launched their imperial stout. Bottled, not canned, with a sober label, ignoring its pink hue… Irregularly but tightly lacing, moussy, egg-white head, medium sized as a regular layer of foam with relatively high degree of retention; lightly hazy, warm orange blonde robe with somewhat salmon pinkish tinge. Aroma of orange cake but grapefruit peel as well, if not so much grapefruit flesh, old rusk, dried banana slices, muesli, sweet paprika powder, dried apricots as used in Moroccan quisine, hint of 'pipe steel' somewhere, dry biscuit cake, vague touch of rotting peach but in a very volatile way. Fruity, crisp onset, notes of dried banana, dried peaches and apricot, sweetish in a restrained way with a thin sourish edge, medium carbonated, with early announcements of bitterness to come; slick, supple mouthfeel. Cleanly bready and lightly caramelly malt base, lean and slender with a biscuity character as well, a tad powdery in the end, when it gets bittered by a robust amount of dried citrus peel- and paprika-like hops, mingling with indeed a subtle grapefruit (juice) flavour, adding further bitterness which as a result is drawn out for quite a long time. Still ends relatively juicy and dried-fruity, but the hop bitterness is strong and resinous and overshadows even the grapefruit bitter touch in the end - or reinforces it with its own grapefruity character, depending on how you look at it. If I had tasted this blind, I probably would have identified it as a classic, West Coast style American IPA, in the style countless American craft brewers made it years ago; the grapefruit factor is there, but subtly so, and gets absorbed by the inherent grapefruit character of the hops themselves to a high degree. Very drinkable, a bit 'juicy' even, but very firmly hoppy as well, with a pleasant 'American' biscuit malt character to it. Especially after their Juicy IPA, I have the impression that the Spencer trappists are more and more diverging from their profoundly Belgian starting point - in a somewhat hesitant way, dipping a toe in the vast ocean of American styled craft beers, as it were. They have created lagers, IPAs, a stout and have also done several barrel aging projects (impossible to obtain in Europe, alas) so who knows, maybe one day these guys will be the creators of the first trappist sour ale… Who knows what they will be up to next (ignoring that Vienna style lager) but one thing is already cristal clear: Spencer is not only the most prolific, but also the most 'modern' of all the current trappist breweries. I'm just a little bit worried that with this kind of beers, they will neither find connection with the traditional trappist world (for being too innovative) nor with the general craft beer world (for being too conservative)… Anyhow, this beer is definitely more 'American' in style than the previous Fruit Series edition and takes their digression from the traditional trappist beer standards one step further. Enjoyed it.

Poured from bottle copper with a white head. Aroma is grapefruit pith light malt and hops. Taste is nice when cold but as it warms the bitterness becomes more astringent.

12 oz. draft in a plastic cup at the brewery's Third Annual Open House. Aroma is subtle grapefruit. Flavor shows pale malt, very subtle grapefruit pith bitterness. Moderate strength for bitterness. Dry pith finish. About average. After 8 oz. and a warmer temperature, the pith got slightly abrasive.