NoDa Brewing Co.
Charlotte, NC
This brew utilizes a wide assortment of Belgian malts, with Tettnang and Mittelfruh to balance its sweetness. Fortified with Belgian candi sugar, much of the flavor and aroma is derived from the Trappist yeast. The yeast provides an array of flavors and aromas such as banana, clove, vanilla, pear, pineapple and peppery notes.
ABV: 9.7
ABW: 7.76
COLOR: 6.8
BITTERNESS: 35
ORIGINAL GRAVITY: 1086
AVAILABLE: NC
This 9.7 percent beer uses everything from Belgium the brewers can lay their hands on—malts, hops, candy sugar and yeast. The result is a Pilsner-pale ale with a lively collar and a nose-curling aroma of peachy sweet fruit, a roselike flowery note, fresh-bread grain and spicy hop resins. The palate is full of candy sweetness but is superbly balanced by an increasingly bitter hop note with biscuit malt and tart lemon notes. The finish is bittersweet but quenching, with tangy fruit, spicy hops and creamy malt.
Wow, did the poor brewer actually sign every label by hand? Apparently one of 1,518 bottles, this one poured a gold-orange hazy beer with a short-lived cap of white foam. The nose is very fruity, with a dominant note of orange Creamsicle. The finish is alcoholic and distinctly warming. From a technical point of view, this is pretty flashy for a tripel—better to think of it as “Belgian-influenced.”
Author of Complete Guide to World Beer and 300 Beers to Try Before You Die. Respected beer authority and editor of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. and www.protzonbeer.co.uk.
Garrett Oliver is the brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, the Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Companion to Beer, the author of The Brewmaster’s Table, and a veteran host of more than 800 beer dinners in 15 countries.
Wed Jul 3rd, 2013
The Young Turks and Old Lions of Breweries
Once a year the whole world of craft brewers, and I do mean the whole world, gathers together for four days of catching up, digesting new ideas, staying up way...
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