Meilsen Tripel
Stokerij - Brouwerij Rubbens in Wichelen, East Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Belgian Style - Tripel Regular|
Score
6.71
|
|
Sign up to add a tick or review
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7
Tripel commissioned by two entrepreneurs in Melsele (locally pronounced “Meilse”, hence the name) and executed at Rubbens, long known for its jenever, but since a few years established as a brewery as well; the guys behind this tripel seem to mean business, as it apparently even has a Wikipedia page of its own already… Anyway, thanks to Craftmember for tracking this one down and sharing a bottle. Snow white, moussey, dense, membrane-lacing, pillowy, very stable head, hazy golden blonde robe with ochre-ish tinge. Aroma of halfripe banana, white bread dough, pear, coriander seed, cold potato mash, moist white pepper, grass, rainwater, apple peel, hint of young wormwood leaves. Sweetish, fruity onset, hinting at pear and halfripe banana again with a touch of peach, moderately carbonated with rounded body; residual powder sugar-ish sweetness lying over a smooth, sleek, cereally pale maltiness, sprinkled with coriander seed and gently but consistently bittered by floral hops. Some warming gin-like alcohol in the end but maintaining a good balance of sweet ad bitter with nothing standing out – in that sense, this is among the most stereotypical tripels I had in a while, its entire profile, from looks over flavour to finish, following the near-standardized script for an ‘abbey style’ tripel without the slightest deviation. Tripel has a lot more potential and more Belgian brewers need the guts to ‘tear open’ the genre and expand it into side paths not yet seen – but of course these guys chose the safe, commercial cliché way and decided to come up with yet another one in a vast ocean of similar Belgian ales. That said and however conceptually boring it is in spite of boasting its own Wikipedia entry (a service that should be done to truckloads of higher level beers if this one deserves that), it is technically well executed, which I feel can be said of everything that came out of Rubbens so far (beer I mean – it has been too long since I had their jenever); in comparison with their ‘own’ Rubbens Tripel, this one is a tad lighter, a tad less sweet and a tad more ‘coriandered’, but I would have to sample them side by side to fully grasp the doubtlessly very subtle differences.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Stable, slightly irregular fine white head, leaving some lace over well-carbonated, fully hazy orange-golden beer. Leafy, green leaves, felt, faintly (root)spicy, white candi sugar. Sweetish to sweet taste, faint salty notes as from seafood - probably DMS. Porridge, and dried apples minus the fruitsugars; spices. Medium bodied, very carbonated feel, seems high in restsugars for a sugared tripel, is relatively light in ABV. Decent without more. Txs to Eddy & Liliane!