I’m on a journey. One to find the world’s best Tripels and while I thought this was a legitimate stop along the way, it turns out I actually grabbed the wrong one. Oops, guess I’ll just have to drink it anyway.

I anticipate this type of beer eagerly. While I’m most definitely not always craving one, when the mood strikes, my expectations are pretty high. While this particular tripel from Allagash isn’t quite so renowned, I still figured it’d be worth a sampling.

It had a dense three-finger head and was a hazy orange, almost like I had filled the glass half way with water and doused the remainder with Tropicana. The smell was a combination of sweet and grainy and I could even smell alcohol right away. The sip was initially smooth, but rolled into a lasting fizzy feeling that stung my tonsils on the way down. A little banana and a little nuttiness blended into the taste, but the combination seemed clumsy and haphazard. There was a bitterness that lasted long as it coated my mouth for minutes after the swallow. With the tripels I’ve truly enjoyed the beer seems like art. I mean that, it is as though crafted intentionally, specifically and precisely. With this one, however, it felt as though the right ingredients of a tripel were thrown together and resulted in an ugly step child version. Awful? No, but since I’ve had some of the best, I know what I’m missing.

ABV: 9%

Grade: B-