For the second Trappist, We will be tasting one from the only non-European Trappist abbey to brew a Beer:
The Spencer Trappist Ale
6.5% alc
Tasting temperature: 14.4°C, 57.9°F
Age: 8 months?
The beer looks has an amber colour, and is slightly cloudy, which is due to the yeast. (At the bottom of the bottle there was a somewhat large deposit, but that doesn't matter. Yeast usually gives a beer more flavour, and it is actually healthy for you (contains a lot of vitamin B).
The foam is very fine and creamlike in substance. It is rather stable, but over time it will dwindle to a thin film which will cover your glass untill you empty it.
This beer has mostly an aroma of hops. Fresh hops, without being overpowering. Not like an IPA, but a gentle aromatic scent, giving it a refreshing scent
#The flavour:
The flavour of this beer starts of with malt. From the taste it is clear that somewhat darker malts have been used in this brewing process, probably vienna and munich rather than straight pilsnener. That would also account for the colour. Besiders this it tastes rather sweet, which to me is not ideal. I would have preferred it somewhat less sweet, but so be it. Drinking it at a cooler temperature would reduce this sweetishness. Amongst this malty sweetness, I also detected a taste most commonly found in darker beers: liquorice. It is subtly present, not overpoweringly. It is actually a very nice touch to it.
#Body: This beer has not that much body, and most of what it does have is supplied by the rather cloyiing sweetness. But ofcourse, it is a beer of 6,5ABV, so we can't expect it to have an immense body. For a 6,5ABV, it has a nice mouthfeel.
Only in the aftertaste do we find the hoppiness back which we had in the aroma. It provides the beer with a crisp and clean aftertaste, in which the sweetness is gone, making this beer a refreshing beverage.
#Age:
Like all beers, beer changes with age. Not all beers provide a bottling date, but I will be making an effort to show you the true age of the beer I drank. In this case, I'm guessing 8 months. 8 months would mean that the brewery gives its beer a shelf life of 2 years, which seems reasonable.
In all, this is a good beer. More geared towards summer than winter. I would probably drink this more often if it was reasonably priced. In belgium these bottles go for 5€ a bottle in retail. Which means that this is about the 4th I've drank in my life, and I'll probably not drink another 4. There are many better beers to be found at that price.
A little history:
This trappist beer has only been in existence very recently: since December 10 2013. It is the first Trappist beer to be produced outside Europe.
Specifically, it is produced at the St. Josephs Abbey in the town of Spencer, Massachussetts, USA.
The abbey got help from the abbey of Scourimont in Belgium (home of the Chimay beers) in order to get their brewery going.)
See you next week thursday for the next trappist.
Previous Trappist reviews:
#1: Blue Chimay: https://steemit.com/beer/@walkerlv/thursday-night-trappist-review-1-chimay-bleue
Cheers