NY Times samples Trappist ales
A New York Times (registration required - free) panel tastes Trappist and abbey-style beers in a what has become a monthly foray into beer (briefly replacing wine) for the Times.
The panel tasted 25 beers and gave 10 2.5 stars or more, including one from each of the five Trappist breweries in the tasting (Westvelteren). Westamalle Tripel was the highest rated, and Weyerbacher Quad from Pennsylvania was the only one of seven beers from the United States to crack the Top 10.
What didn’t make the cut? That isn’t exactly revealed but the story notes, “In addition to the Southampton, American ales that narrowly missed out included the Ommegang Abbey Ale and the Victory Golden Monkey Triple Ale.”
The Southampton beer was Abbot 12 from Southampton Publick House. Eric Asimov writes, “Tony and I very much liked the Southampton Abbot, a dark ale that had brilliant flavors. But Florence and Frank felt it was overwhelming. It just missed making the list.”
Abbot 12 has a cult following, and brewer Phil Markowski (author of Farmhouse Ales) notes that he used Rochefort 10 and St. Bernardus 12 as reference beers when creating Abbot 12.
Markowski offers some excellent insights into brewing beers in the Trappist tradition, including the importance of sugar as an ingredient and why many Americans still shy away from using it.
“I think that one of the main areas that differentiate American versions of Belgian ales from the classic (Belgian) versions is attenuation,” he said. “I believe that there is still a fairly prevalent anti-adjunct bias among many American brewers, both amateur and professional, that makes them hold back from using enough sugar to achieve the same level of dryness that the classic Belgian examples exhibit. It seems that many of these brewers tend to think of adjuncts as ‘dishonest’ ingredients. Until one embraces the use of notable amounts of sugar adjuncts in replicating classic Trappist-abbey styles, they will fall short of the mark.”
