750 ml bottle from beastiefan2k. Pour is a gusher - hazy golden with floating particulates with a billowing white head that falls fast. Very fine carbonation is visible. Aroma of Brandy booziness, with floral-citrus hops. Lots of apple on the nose. Taste is very sharp on the apple Brandy initially, falling quickly into more traditional Tripel flavors - fruit (apple) sweetness with grassy Belgian yeastiness. Pretty boozy on the finish. Really cool concept that was well executed, just too much Brandy and apple for me. Thanks for sending this one my way Eugene!

Thanks to Stine for sharing. An usual beer. I am happy to see a non-bourbon barrel, the apple brandy is a good idea and not something I have had before. This is hot from alcohol. It has a very nice apple and yeast aroma, as if it is naturally fermented in barrels, almost like a lambic. The apple character is there in the aroma and flavor, some hint of brandy or even calvados.

After the long wait I finally get to try this beer. I was first supposed to try this in the summer of 2007 on cask, did not happen. Then constant carbonation issues but I finally picked the bottles up at the brewery drinking it now, 7 months later. It pours with a beautiful medium sized strong head that slowly fades into a thick lacing. The beer is full of carbonation bubbles shooting through the darker golden body.. Clear enough to see the beautiful bubbles (the last pour is ridiculously full of sediment and other junk). Aroma is very apple for me, nice thick cider like apple with a Belgian airiness. No hoppiness felt , as I like it. Taste is lightly apple sweet, light booziness, light oak, and some Belgian dough sweetness. All very nicely melded. There is the faintest heat at the end of the flavor left at the back of the throat, giving it some heft. Otherwise, its actually very easy to drink, the alcohol does into get in the way and the beer melds nicely with the base tripel. It’s not as groundbreaking as I hoped for but came out damn nice anyway. The last pour has a lot of apple muskiness.
Capped green 750mL, Duvel large tulip glass.

Re-rate: 3 years later this went to shit. May have not been kept the best (heat) but I could not help it with constant moving. It had very low carbonation and has become cardboard. I will leave the original rating but this wold be around 3.1 on its own.

Thanks to JoeMcphee for picking up a few bottles of this for me - hazy copper/gold beer, with a fizzy head that disappears almost completely, leaving a beer that looks quite a bit like unpasteurized apple cider - the brandy is strong in the aroma, as is some sweet caramel, giving the aroma an initial caramel apple character - underneath this there are some spicy and floral aspects, with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg, making it more like apple pie filling - a really good start with the aroma - not as sweet as expected, and it is actually semi-dry and spicy at first - a strong alcohol/boozy presence swells up underneath this fast, though, giving the beer an occasionally antiseptic property (my mouth is tingling, like when I use listerine) - the alcohol astringency continues throughout, and kind of squashes a lot of the good stuff lurking underneath (lively spices, touches of vanilla and oak, a pleasant fruitiness, apples being most prevalent, an almost toasted coconut character) - mild diacetyl develops late, as does subtle apple skin tartness - I don’t know what the problems were with this beer that delayed it’s release, but I don’t think Scott fixed them all - maybe age will mellow this - but it will need a lot of it.