Beer – #1,090 – Urbanaut – Doris Plum Belgium Quadruple

Urbanaut – Doris Plum, Belgium Quadruple, in a comedy 250ml can. I’ve been to beer festivals where this is the serve size. These are the same cans as their range of beer-blenders come in, so it’s not really a surprise, and quite a clever way to maximise profit I imagine.

rounded out with a dash

This is a 250ml can of a beer that is at 10.0% ABV, making it, surprisingly, 2 standard drink units in NZ, and at 355calories a serve size this would be 200ish calories.I could be wrong I’m not terribly good at math.

Urbanaut – Doris Plum, Belgium Quadruple is brewed in Kingsland 🇳🇿 Auckland, New Zealand in the style that is a Quadrupel / Abt  

A ripe amber-coloured beer layered with spicy esters and rich caramel notes, rounded out with a dash of juicy Doris plums.

So, What could possibly go wrong?

As this is the smallest beer you could image I’ve decided to have it in the biggest glass I could find. It seemed fair and reasonable. It’s also unlikely that you’ll see the beer in the glass.

Honestly I thought more banana than plum when I opened the can, then I thought bubble-gum, it’s pretty much the same as banana nearly.

It’s more beer colour than I thought was going to be when pouring, but it settles sullenly to a flat vaguely dark plum colour in the glass, wherein the aroma really has a chance to fulfil itself, and still it becomes that banana/bubblegum thing.

The taste is a big malty smack, very to style, but there’s not a lot of flavour over and or on top of that sugariness.

It is a thick alcohol laden drink that is quite sweet. There’s not a lot of real flavour in this that I can notice or is noticeable even as a trace, which is really disappointing.

So there you are, smaller is not better, more malt does not equal more flavour, writing Doris Plum on the label does not mean that you get to taste it in the drink, and that there, the gap between the expectation and the delivery is called the dissapointment.

The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 7 of its things from the thing. It really is quite disappointing, from the initial aroma to the lack of the promised plums. As a Quad this is fairly nice, in a boring and pedestrian way, but it really lacks flavour and personality.

The double dip review

• Where did I get it? The local Liquorland of course.
• Am I enjoying it? Not for what it is supposed to be, it’s nice to have a Quad. though
• Would I have another? Nope
• Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? No this is quite the disappointment really and for me does nothing to enhance the brewers status.

Music for this:  High Violet by The National – which I’m having on vinyl (purple) but you can listen on Spotify.

ABT/QUADRUPEL

Abt, or quadrupel, is the name given to ultra-strong Trappist and abbey ales. The name Abt was pioneered to describe Westvleteren and the beer that would become St. Bernardus. Quadrupel was pioneered by La Trappe. Abts are the darker of the two, with more rich, deep fruity notes. Quads are paler, with corresponding peachy notes. Neither have much in the way of hop, and both are very strong and malty. Though both are bottle-conditioned, abts trend more towards yeastiness. Alcohol is very high (10+% abv) for both.