Beer review and some sampling

Next up on beer reviewing is Sprecher Premium Reserve Abbey Tripple. I poured the beer cold on purpose. The beer is a nice yellow color with a bit of yeast cloud do to it's unfiltered nature. It starts sweet with hints of the wheat malt on the nose. The sweetness stays fairly constant as it warms up. The hop presence is very slight and not bitter due to an IBU value of 13. Mid-mouth and finish are quite fruity, with a hint of alcohol. As abbey ales go, I find it quite enjoyable and would put with Anderson Valley's tripple as a comparison.

If I get a chance to test my Cluster-Fuggles ale, I will update the blog.

The edit.

The Cluster-Fuggles was bottled on Sunday, so just 6 days in. There is the hiss of carbonation when opening and it pours to a deep brown color. It almost qualifies as a black ale, but not quite. The head is pronounced and a light brown. It stays with the drink the whole way. The aroma is that of Fuggles and malt. The Munich malt is noticed mid-mouth as is the Fuggles. The finish has hint of the chocolate malt and hops. Not quite a hop-heads delight, but is more than a typical ale. This mix holds much promise. There are many modifications I want to try with this recipe, but I will do one at a time. The first will be to increase the Munich malt to a pound, then I would like to try more hops and have a better blend from Cluster to Fuggles. Say, move some Cluster into the flavor and some Fuggles into the bittering. At some point I will try a darker Crystal malt (say 60-80L). I like the alcohol where it is at 5.2%.