Beer – #282 – Rochefort – Trappistes 8

I don’t know why I haven’t drunk this to review and write about, I’ve had it on nights out – a Rochefort – Trappistes 8

Brewed by Brasserie Rochefort in the style of a Belgian Strong Ale and who knew that you’d find them in Rochefort, Belgium

This is a 300ml bottle of a 9.2% ABV beer, it has around 276 calories and tips in at 2.39 standard drink units in NZ , all of which I’m about to plunder.

The lower gravity cousin to Rochefort 10. Nicknamed “Spéciale” (’The Special’), this beer is the most recent production.

The Rochefort 8 has a more tawny colour and a more pronounced aroma, with an even richer fruitiness (a slight undertone of fig?) and a little more spiced dryness, like that of a cake, which gives a balanced finish to the final notes.

I can’t make an excuse about my intake tonight. I had a strange old day, it invoked buying a new car, my car breaking down, then going again, then being towed, not eating all day until 4 pm, and a new pair of running shoes.

But I digress. Kings of Leon accompany me in this, they’re a bit good for this sort of thing.

This has a really “british bitter” type aroma, sort of wet yeast

Pours a really brown brown with a decent head, may have poured the sludge though 😦 such a n00b. Decent head that stays I can’t pick much by way or aroma though. Blame the previous excess.

Not sure this is what I thought it was going to be. I think it’s a bit alcohol astringent up front, a bit bitter, and without a lot of the warmth that I might expect from a soft caramels addition.

What I don’t perceive is any sweetness in this. So I stopped and drank some water. Then I tried again, and all I got really was a bit of alcohol astringent, which is what you really could expect.

So how does “the everyone” like this so much ? It can’t be an emperors new clothes thing, and so therefore it could be an emperors new clothes thing, or that there are variance in the bottle quality. It might be the surrounding diet of beers though, the chaff amongst the wheat as it were.

As this warms, and thats important, it does get a couple of things, and “a couple of things” is my new black, it gets a bit more ‘fuller’ but it also carries that same tang of alcohol astringent. The thin head is very persistent, and present.

This is Science !

The pdubyah-o-meter, the fickle thing it is, is wavering on this, as much as it wants to conform, it has it’s own mind. I have so many better beers that this it’s difficult. But of this and only this the thing is that it’s not tart, sharp, musty, mouldy, bready, it is like Belgium beers, it’s astringent, it’s bitter across the whole range, but it doesn’t finish long and make you regret drinking it. It lacks the caramel warmth and colour that I like.

So 8, very good, on the scale of things.

I have to get over the worrying what people think about what I’m thinking, I wear a purple floral shirt for pity sake.

MrsPhilMobile

Meantime: MrsPdubyah is reading the manual about her new car.

There have been a few trips the garage and back as she discovers new things about it. It’s funny, we will have this for a few years, the car, not the mooching to the garage and back.

Kings of Leon have done a cracking job on repeat to entertain me, the old cat is being weird, the young one crashed and is asleep.

Just another day in a life less ordinary, the same as yours but a bit different.

BELGIAN STRONG ALE

Belgian Strong Ales can vary from pale to dark brown in color, darker ales may be colored with dark candy sugar. Hop flavor can range from low to high, while hop aroma is low. The beers are medium to full-bodied and have a high alcoholic character. Types of beers included here include tripels, dubbels and ultra-strong abbey ales.