Elysian Bete Blanche Belgian Triple

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

From Firefly (Cambie location). Poured not much head over a body of clear, medium gold. Pleasant, Belgianesque golden ale aroma and likewise the flavour. Decent mouth, with a slight sourness to finish.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

It pours a light yellow-gold with thick and foamy white head and lacing. A sour aroma of rich malts, light hops, citrus, some grassiness, champagne yeast, pears, and light spices. The mouthfeel is smooth and its richness builds. Flavors of sweet malts, hops, citrus, pears, some grassiness, champagne yeast, and spices. Very good, but weak compared to the Belgian Tripels.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 10 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

22oz bottle, purchased at the brewery April 2007; Sampled August 2007
I have had this beer a couple times and. as usual, the beer is quite over carbonated. The beer sits in my glass with a lightly hazy, orangish tinged, copper color. A multitude of mad rivulets of carbonation stream up through the beer. This produces a full, four-finger thick, pale tan colored head that slowly recedes with a crag-mired surface and all the while leaving lacing patterns on the sides of the glass. A sharp, spicy aroma greets my nose with notes of ginger, tart citrus, earthy coriander and a nice honey-like note. A solid, clean malt character is found in the nose too, with notes of biscuit-like malt, fresh crushed malt, soda crackers and even some sweet malt aromatics. The aroma on this beer is quite nice & I certainly am enjoying smelling this beer.

The beer is fairly sweet tasting (though in no way overly so), which gives this a solid herbal-varietals-honey like flavor. The beer is quite well carbonated still, despite it being almost 10 minutes since I poured this brew. The carbonation adds a zesty, prickly sensation and certainly helps to clean the sweet honey flavors from the palate, though it never entirely banishes it. The finish has a herbal astringency (almost basil like, sort of menthol like), a solid hop bitterness and a dry malt character to it. Flavors of orange zest, white pepper, young ginger, soda crackers, fresh cut sharp tasting herbs (a mix of arugula/rocket, dandelion, nettle and green tea), sweet malt, perhaps a hint of earthy coriander, honeysuckle and even some notes akin to penny royal.

Quite a nice example of a Tripel. Despite the perceived sweetness, this beer still captures a lightness and quaffability that I like to see in my strong, pale, Belgian-inspired ales (even though many examples from Belgium don't have this). I think that this beer is not nearly as sweet as my focus on it has been; a large part of this is due to the distinct honey note that I find here. I must say that I really like the hop character here, it adds a herbal, zesty edge to the flavor and plays quite a role in the flavor profile. This beer is really impressing me at this moment in time; in fact it is almost exactly what I want in a beer at this moment in time (yesterday or tomorrow I might not have appreciated it nearly as much). This is certainly one of the better beers I have had from this good brewery.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

I was hanging out with my buddy Richard yesterday, while he was brewing up a batch of homebrewed stout. Later on, we split a few bottles, and this one came along as the sun was setting.

First things first. Way too damn fizzy, even for the style. Maybe this was shaken up in transit to SoCal, but even then I doubt that the beer would come across so over-the-top fizzy in the mouthfeel. Between that, and the general heavier-than-normal malt body to this beer, this Tripel was too heavy and lunkish, IMO.

Aroma was also a bit out-of-the-norm. Apricot? Apple? Guava? Not neccesarily out of place for a beer of this style to have fruit-like undertones in the nose. But when it gets too distracting, it takes away from some of the enjoyment, me'thinks.

Flavor-wise, this was reasonably tasty, albeit a little too bitter for the what I expect to find in a Belgian-esqe beer.

Not horrible, but at no time did I ever buy off on this being even remotely from anywhere but PacNW. A "complex Golden Ale", or "Farmhouse Pale Ale"? Sure, I'll buy that. But this aint much of a Tripel, boy-o.

Cheers to Richard for the sample from his stash.
//TB

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Medium orange gold color. Large rocky white head. Aroma is orange, yeasts and candy sugar. Medium bodied Belgian Triple. Malts are fruity and sweet. Orange, apricots, and peaches. Touches of must and tobacco. Bright yeasts. Nicely spicy. Lively carbonation. Nicely balanced. Smooth taste, touch of alcohol at the finish. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is slightly spicy.