Westmalle Triple Beer, 6x330ml

Product Information

The word ‘ tripel’ makes reference to the fact that ingredients are used in quantities larger than usual. It is a strong, predominantly blond beer with a strong taste of malts and/or hop bitters. You can tell the Westmalle Tripel from the Dubbel by its label, which looks antique and yellowed, and the bottle cap in the same colour stamped with the brewery’s initials. This beer is usually served from 33 cl bottles, exactly the contents of the accompanying chalice glass. The Tripel is also available in 75 cl bottles. It is remarkable that the beer in these larger bottles matures in a different way. The fruity aroma is a bit softer and riper and the beer gets a light vanilla touch. Still, this was a refreshing tasting, despite the ABV. After all of those stouts, we needed a real palate cleanser in terms of flavor profiles, and the effervescence and Belgian yeast-driven flavors of these tripels really hit the spot nicely. Even tasters who didn’t previously count tripels among their favorite beer styles came away with a new appreciation for them. A bit of history: The family-owned Flemish brewery, Duvel Moortgat, has been around since 1871, and is best know for its pale ale, Duvel. As a change cannot be done without being 100 percent sure of the quality and the flavor of our beers, we placed one pilot CCT with a lot of possibilities for sampling and measuring different parameters like the evolution of the Plato, yeast concentration, and the flavor of the beer.

Unholy is one of the best American-brewed Tripels. Distinctive Belgian yeast character meshes perfectly with a heavy hand of pungent American hops. They manage to push the classic style toward IPA level hoppiness without hindering the Belgian yeast complexity. The delicate nature of the Tripel style is preserved and the balance is refreshing and unique. Dulle Teve, De Dolle BrouwersThe brewery produces three beers. Westmalle Dubbel is a 7% abv Dubbel. Westmalle Tripel is a 9.5% abv tripel, was first brewed in 1934 and the recipe has not changed since 1956. It is made with pale candy sugar and has a very pale colour produced from a mash of light pilsener malts. Styrian Goldings hops are used along with some German varieties and the classic Saaz pilsener hop. After a long secondary fermentation Westmalle Tripel is bottled with a dose of sugar and yeast. Westmalle Extra is a 5% abv beer with limited availability, i.e. a patersbier. It is the beer drunk by the monks during the working-day. [4] [5] It has been speculated that Westmalle's choice of three types of beers was based on the Holy Trinity. [6] A traditional decoction mash is used to produce a highly fermentable wort with a beautiful, deep golden color. For homebrewers using well-modified malts, this isn’t necessary.

One family of Belgian ales, termed Strong Dark by the BJCP, includes a myriad of commercial examples with a range of flavors, all having their dark color and high strength (usually 8–10+% ABV) in common. Strong darks are almost always malty with caramel and toasty characters, but can have any combination of ester and phenolic balance. This style includes the strongest examples of many of the Trappist monasteries. Excellent examples include St. Bernardus Abt 12, Westvleteren 12 (yellow cap), Chimay Blue (also called Grande Reserve), Rochefort 10 (blue), Delirium Nocturnum and Avery The Reverend. Yeast selection and fermentation control is what makes or breaks brewing a great Tripel. Pitching a large amount of healthy, specially selected yeast is crucial to success.After two months in a row of nearly overwhelming blind tastings— 102 non-barrel-aged imperial stouts, followed by a whopping 144 barrel-aged stouts safe to say that the Paste beer tasters were hanging on by a thread. We needed a style that would draw significantly fewer entries, for the sake of our livers if nothing else. Thankfully, Belgian tripel was there for us. Tripel is a unique genre in that it’s not bitter or overly hoppy, but still very pale in color. Most of the flavor comes from the fermentation. Yeast selection and fermentation temperature play vital roles to create tasty esters and phenols. It’s a strong beer that leaves almost no room for error in masking fermentation derived off-flavors. Hot alcohols, fusels, diacetyl, or solvent-like flavors have no place in well-brewed Tripels.

Traditionally served in the Westmalle chalice, with the characteristic raised 'Westmalle trappist' inscription in relief gold. It is underpinned by the winged brewery logo, sporting the brewery’s initials. At the top of the stem of the glass you will find the ring which also famously adorns the 33cl bottles.Nestled at the end of the narrowest street in Bruges, De Garre is a historic pub in one of the world’s great cities. Inside, you’ll find beer loving locals and tourists indulging in goblets of Tripel De Garre. House rules state that you’re only allowed three glasses in one sitting. At 11% ABV, that’s usually plenty – especially for eager tourists not used to Belgian beer. Delicate flavor balance between bready malts, herbaceous hops, and spicy and estery yeast is the nucleus of a perfect Tripel. With high-strength beers, alcoholic bite is sometimes inevitable. A major key is to control the fermentation, coaxing desirable esters and phenols, while keeping fusel alcohols to a minimum.

A bit of history: Allagash, founded in 1994, specializes in Belgian-style ales and bottle-conditions all its beers. Yeast character is pronounced in great Tripels. It leans towards fruity esters, like banana, pear, or bubblegum, blended with light spicy phenolics. Greg Doss, a microbiologist and brewer with Wyeast, recommends that “brewers should use 8–15 ppm of oxygen for healthy fermentations,” but with Belgian ales “12–15 ppm oxygen is recommended.” When brewing strong Belgian ales, two factors impede oxygen dissolving into the cool wort: temperature and specific gravity. Oxygen dissolves more readily at cooler temperatures. Since ales inherently are brewed at higher temperatures, the maximum possible dissolved oxygen is lower than that for lagers. Also, oxygen is less soluble in high gravity worts, making this another barrier for getting proper dissolved oxygen levels in a strong Belgian ale wort. Therefore, it is highly recommended that pure oxygen be used for oxygenating the cool wort for a strong Belgian ale. Doss goes on to recommend that “splashing and shaking the carboy, a traditional homebrew method, only reached 8 ppm of dissolved oxygen where 15 ppm can be reached with pure oxygen and a stone in 80 seconds.”

The verdict: A spicier hop profile differentiates it from its few peers. Anyone who thinks of beer as unrefined needs to taste this. The best yeast strains to produce an ester character powerful enough to balance the dark malts in a dubbel are the Chimay strains: Wyeast 1214 and White Labs WLP500. The complex esters complement the rich caramel malts (especially from special B) to develop a plum and currant-like character without citrus or banana esters. The verdict: The Bruges herbal mixture called gluut gives a pleasant spiciness to the mild hops and malt. When brewing Belgian-style beer, it’s always fun and challenging to respect tradition while adding your own personal touch. Belgian Tripel – that strong, pale, and luxurious ale – is an elegant style to brew to showcase your homebrewing prowess. The primary yeast strains for fermenting a strong golden are Wyeast 1388 (Belgian Strong Ale) and White Labs WLP570 (Belgian Golden Ale) with a probable origin of Duvel Moortgat. These strains produce a strong peppery phenolic with a balanced orange and lemon-like ester. This strain attenuates well but has been known to be slow to ferment and flocculate. At temperatures in the high end of its suggested range, the yeast character can become very estery with a banana character.