Fruity with a good bitterness

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Hazy medium golden, full with tiny bubbles, good frothy white head, good retention and heavy lacing. Aroma sweet malt, Belgian yeast, light banana, white grapes, sugar melon, coriander notes. Maste medium sweet and bitter, Belgian yeast, overripe fruit, spicy notes. Sugary sweetbitter aftertaste, alcohol, dusty notes, medium body, oily texture, lively carbonation. Not balanced, too sweet and alcoholic, okay.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

D’Oude Caert in Brasschaat has been experimenting with barrel aging their tripel for quite a while now, this is one of the new ones at the time of my rating, a version aged on cognac barrels. From a 75 cl bottle coming from De Caigny. Medium thick, snow white, mousy, dissipating head over a misty apricot blonde beer with warm ‘old gold’ hue. Aroma initially struck by DMS, but atypically this effect, which I thoroughly detest, fades away fairly quickly, making room for impressions of banana, sweetbread, stewed apple, coriander seed, brandy indeed but not very strong, vanilla-ish oak (also subtle), orange zest, pear drop, pineapple slices, honey, candyfloss, bubblegum, touch of iron. Estery onset with a strong dosage of banana, bubblegummy even, with notes of peach and pineapple at the sides, fizzy carb, full and rounded mouthfeel. Malt sweet middle, bread-‘pulpy’ and honeyish in its residual sweetness, soft and fluffy with sweet-and-spicy coriander as well as indeed a subtle cognac barrel effect, warming, a bit vinous and dessert wine-like even, with vanilla-ish oaky notes retronasally; the cognac accentuates the beer’s own booziness but doesn’t alter the taste as thoroughly as I was hoping for, so the whole thing still ends as a sweet, boozy, coriandered and banana-estered tripel. Maybe second filling, or not enough time in the barrel? I’m not sure, but this is the second of these barrel aged Oude Caert tripels I try now and the second one that falls a bit short of expectations.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

Imported from my RateBeer account as d'Oude Caert Cognac Barrel (by Brouwerij d'Oude Caert):
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 12/20, MyTotalScore: 3.2/5

9/XII/18 - 75cl bottle @ home, BB: X/2020 - (2018-1977) Thanks to Alengrin for sharing the bottle!
Pretty clear blond to orange beer, big creamy off-white head, bit adhesive. Aroma: lots and lots of overripe banana, bit malty, coriander, bit spicy. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: lots of coriander, spicy, dry, sweetish, lots of overripe banana, bit sugary. Aftertaste: more banana, coriander, sweetish, hint of apple sauce, little bitter, oxidized, orange peel. The beer isn't too bad, but where's the cognac? Probably a second fill, or even a third... ? Definitely not worth the big bucks...

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

27 September 2018. Birthday Antwerp Pub Crawl - cheers to Anke! At Gollemke.
Pours clear golden/yellow with a lasting, small, foamy, white head; irregular lacing. Aroma of mouldy apple, ripe apricot, sweet wort, soap, cheese, some sweat, yeast, white bread. Sourish yeasty & medium sweet onset, quite bready with hints of apple & pineapple; light spicy bitter middle with some dank cheese. Dry, yeasty finish, bit grassy hoppy, sourish citric touch & warming jenever alcohol. Medium body, slick texture, fizzy carbonation. Well-made but stereotypical & quite 'dank' Belgian Tripel.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7

The third embodiment of this series of oak aged Oude Caert tripels, 75 cl bottle from Drinks 4 U in Deinze, shared with tderoeck. Never saw this coming as I missed the 2016 versions apparently, but then those were even more limited than this one so I guess they were distributed only very locally. This 2017 one, from six barrels in total, has been aged on single malt whisky barrels, allegedly from a famous brand - but a brand that apparently doesn't want its name attached to this beer, as its identity remains anonymous. Towering high, irregularly lacing, egg-white, stable, moussy head over a hazy, deep yellow blonde beer with pale orangey tinge. Aroma olf ripe banana, vanilla-ish oak wood, apple sauce, coriander seed, whisky, apricot jam, sweet white wine, green pear, grapes, butter. Sweetish onset, strong banana isoamylacetate like the basic beer, ripe pear and peach notes, sharply stinging overcarbonation, full and rounded mouthfeel; bready, soft malt sweet body with honeyish residual sugariness on top. Develops more complexity in the finish, where, amidst malt and sugar sweetness, banana ester and soapy-spicy coriander, a delicate vanilla-like oakiness shows up, yet remaining (too) limited in tannic effects; a warming, vinous, more wine- than explicitly whisky-like alcohol effect ensues. Hops provide a soft, earthy bitterness, malt and estery sweetness remain dominant with the coriander very noticeable in spite of the barrel treatment. Ends bready-yeasty and warming. I have no idea how much time d'Oude Caert Tripel spent in a barrel but in any case it wasn't long enough to deeply penetrate the beer with oakiness and whisky aromatics; I usually like oak aged tripels quite a lot, but this one remains too close to its own basic self and doesn't entirely live up to expectations. Still an interesting ale, though, making me curious about the whole project, even if finding bottles of the older variations will probably be quite a challenge.