St. Godeleva
United Beers in Evergem, East Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Belgian Style - Tripel Regular|
Score
6.47
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St. Godeleva is een smaakvol eerbetoon aan de gelijknamige Vlaamse heilige, bekend om haar wonderlijke legendes. Net als haar verhaal, is dit bier een samensmelting van mysterie en mirakels, waarbij een diep gouden kleur en een stabiele schuimkraag uw zintuigen prikkelen. Aroma’s van rijp fruit en een subtiele kruidigheid dansen harmonieus samen in uw neus, terwijl een volle, moutige smaak en een zachte bitterheid de tong strelen.
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Alengrin (11675) reviewed St. Godeleva from United Beers 1 month ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Abbey tripel brewed 'in the name of' the St. Godelieve abbey, founded in the 17the century by benedictines in Bruges, now no longer in function (the last sisters left in 2013) but a protected and allegedly beautiful site I must absolutely visit one day; I wonder if the sisters, supposing they would still rule the place, would have given former cab driver Joeri Cools permission to use their abbey for his rather tasteless commercial exploitation of lost abbeys by linking soulless cliché beers to them... The man started this idea with his Bavo beer for the St. Baafs abbey in Ghent - a ruin since the 16th century but historically and spiritually one of the city's most sacred sites in my opinion. More importantly in this context, let us not forget that Cools has been in the trade for much longer than that, as I recall a coincidental ride in his taxi almost ten years ago now, when he was busy developing his Libidus range of 'aphrodisiac' beers - here gathered under "Let It Beer", the first of a series of 'bierfirma's' he created. After "Let It Beer", apparently "United Beers" ensued, and "Iedereen Bavo" also seems to be one of his beer-producing companies - in short, the man has a history of creating one little company after another to exploit his commercial brands, and with this one having been entered as a "United Beers" product issued by "Iedereen Bavo", I admittedly got lost in the web he has woven... I think the bottom line is that Cools remains determined to conquer at least East Flanders with his commercially oriented beers and I fear that "United Beers" is not even the last of his projects. The whole bunch, however, whether it be "Let It Beer", "United Beers" or "Iedereen Bavo", is executed at established breweries, and I am willing to bet that they all came from the kettles of originally Boelens and that production later shifted to Eutropius (now BCB). Clearly, all of them were simply commissioned by Cools, who acts as a client and has nothing to do with the recipe or the production process. Time for a thorough clean-up of all of Cools's creations, I would say - and I regret he has given up his taxi job years ago, because I stumbled upon him regularly in the past whenever I randomly took a cab here in Ghent... Anyway: my overly elaborate introduction here is the very reason I have been keeping this bottle aside for five months or so, I just could not bring myself to decipher all the Cools beers and their relations to one another, until today. Initially foamy and glass-filling, egg-white, busily plaster-like lacing, thinning but very stable head on an initially clear 'old golden' robe with pale orangey tinge and disparate bubbles here and there, turning misty with sediment. Aroma of old potatoes, damp straw, coriander seed (and a lot - but in a dull and 'old' kind of way), 'graanjenever', linseed, soggy white bread, pond water, overripe turnip, spoiled green cabbage or 'dirty' aquarium water, overcooked broccoli (DMS), apple peel, clove, cooked meat to indeed chicken broth, valerian flowers (which is not an agreeable odour if you know it), withering watercress, something vaguely juniper-like. Fruity onset, sweet with clear banana ester though not in an overly bubblegummy way, peach and pear notes too, sharpish carbonation stinging here and there; rounded mouthfeel, slick white-bready pale malts, straightforward, with residual sweetness on top, honeyish, connecting with the floral aromas provided by the hops - which then proceed to add 'end bitterness' too, balancing out the sweetness but not entirely so. Coriander seed, meanwhile, has been present from the start, has grown stronger towards the finish and finally dominates retronasally, alongside those floral elements, a very strong dosage of 4-vinyl-guaiacol (clove, but also turning chicken-soupy and even meaty) and lingering estery fruitiness. Unsurprisingly at this point, a warming, 'graanjenever'-like alcohol glow ensues, but fortunately it does not behave too indecently. The shamelessly opportunistic marketing behind this product is one thing, being intellectually dishonest in gratuitously claiming this is a historical beer another - and enough to put Cools on the stake for heresy had he lived in the actual 17th century - but if you come up with one 'beer firm' after another and one fake 'abbey beer' after another, then at least try to be ambitious and create something worthwile and original instead of the umpteenth Belgian abbey tripel cliché, which in this case is not even technically flawless. This is wrong in so many ways.
nathanvc (7053) reviewed St. Godeleva from United Beers 1 year ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Bottle from Delhaize.
A: clear golden, big, foamy, white head.
A: ripe apple, pear, wet grass, soap, jenever.
T: sweet apple, pear, pale malt, spices.
F: bitter grassy & floral hoppy finish, phenolic notes, warming jenever-like alcohol.
P: medium body, slick texture, fizzy carbonation.
More stereotypes, please!