Pours a hazy amber from a bottle, thin white head quickly dissipating with some lacing. Citrusy aroma, flavor is a hit of quick apricoty sweetness followed by a lot of grapefruit bitterness. Good beer.

Poured from bottle nice golden color with a white head. Aromas of orange caramel and faint hops. Taste is creamy with caramel malt in the forefront with a hint of citrus and hop bitterness in thee finish. Interesting.

Now I have an interesting beer, american trappist. Interesting was also the beginning, the beer poured to the table, luckily I had a glass in near and not a big damage happened. Beautiful, a dark orange colour, murky, a head is big and blond. Aroma has fruitness, apricot, mandarin, some fruit candies, also aromatic flowers, some biscuits. Promising. Taste has strong flowers, mandarin, apricot, some sweetness, drying bitterness. Medium bodied, fresh, balanced carbonation. Succesfully beer with a unique touch that’s nice element for a trappist.

The second Spencer beer, still firmly rooted in Belgian trappist traditions, I expect a variation on Belgian Christmas beers... Anyway, 75 cl bottle obtained from a private collector. Medium thick, tightly lacing, pale greyish white, moussy head with decent retention, over a translucent burgundy coloured beer with vermillion red robe, practically clear at first with tiny yeast bits here and there but turning fully misty with deposit. Very sweet-spicy, perfumey aroma of toffee, lavender soap, an immense amount of soapy coriander, stewed beef, cloves, liquorish candy, fig, candied cherry, Belgian chocolates, aniseed, curaçao liqueur, marmelade, hazelnut paste, freshly grated ginger, chicken broth, cinnamon, port, damp earth underneath. Lots of candied sweetness in the onset, cherries, figs and raisins as well as candied orange, some ’deep’, soft sourishness for back-up, soft carbo, thick and resinous body, very caramelly malt sweetness gaining a deeply nutty and eventually bitterish toasted edge as the palate progresses, ending in a bittersweet malt finish adorned with warming, even slightly astringent, liqueurish alcohol, some spicy hops providing extra bitterness and, more than anything else, very strong retronasal ’winter’ spices (allspice, lavender, cloves and - above all, of course - the unmistakable, heavy soapiness of coriander seed). Soapy, resinous, bittersweetish coriander is what remains after swallowing, along with nutty and sweet caramelly malts, a ’beefy’ umami flavour and warming, slightly wry alcohol. I have learned to grow a bit weary in the vicinity of spice beers but like any other beer style, I can appreciate them when they are well executed; this one is a solid beer with a big, firm malt base, but the alcohol is a bit too pronounced for my taste and coriander rules with an iron fist. I have had too many ’overcoriandered’ Belgians I think, but whatever the case, this would probably have appealed to me a lot more without this exaggerated soapy spiciness, which makes it a bit hard to pour down. Liquid Christmas cake with Belgian yeast traits, but not the worst in this particular substyle. I got what I bargained for: an overspiced Belgian Christmas beer with a Scotch-like basis. Visit OBER’s Christmas beer festival in December and you’ll find many such beers... More interestingly: apparently the trappist monks in Spencer just released their first IPA, using a cleaner yeast than the Belgian yeast strain they started with, and with which they made their first three beers. It seems they are increasingly attempting to get in touch with the modern American craft beer culture rather than the Belgian trappist traditions - and so the trappist tale goes on and on, diverging ever more from where it started.

Bottled:
A gusher. Muddy pale brown with a weak head. Aroma is toffee, orange peels, spices and marsh mallows. Somewhat watery mouth feel. Taste is toffee, spices and red apples.
Pretty bland.

Sampled at RBBWG16 . thnx for sharing everyone ! Pours black, no real head. Smell is sweet. Dark fruits. Taste is Sharp, mildly bitter. Perfumy , dark malts. Very roasty , rather dry. Ok mf , higher side of carbo.

Bottle bought in Liberty Wine Merchants. Very carbonated. Aroma and taste are sweet-sour, malt, yeast, flowers, notes of mead. Hoppy bitterness aftertaste. Just a good regular abbey Belgian blonde, not more. Overrated IMHO.

Shared cork and caged 0.75 litre bottle on 17th Feb 2016 at a Shrewsbury Bottle Exchange Group meeting. Cheers Mat for bringing this offering. Slight haze to the old golden coloured pour, on top a white crown. Yeasty nose, very Belgian in my opinion, floral and spicy in both the aroma and flavour. Liked it.

Flaska från SB. Skummar kraftigt ur flaskan, bärnstensfärgad med ett stort skum som lägger sig relativt snabbt. Doft av torkad frukt, honung, jäst, hö och lite kryddor. Söt smakbild men relativt lägg kropp och en lätt örtig beska gör att den inte blir så tung eller kvalmig. Den skulle nog kunna kallas tunn men jag tycker det funkar bra då smakerna är väl tilltagna. Kryddig beska möter söt fruktighet. Söta äpplen, aprikos, torkade päron, honung. Trevlig. Man känner släktskapet med trappisterna i Belgien. Liknar en Rochefort 6 om man skall nämna någon.