Palm Speciale

Palm Breweries
Steenhuffel, Belgium
Imported by: Latis Imports
Ridgefield, CT

Available: draft in NY, CT, CA, NJ

Palm is the most popular specialty beer in Belgium, available for the first time in the United States.

ABV: 5.4
ABW: 4.3
Color: n/a
Bitterness: 18
Original gravity: n/a

The “mainstream” Belgian beers are more expressive than the mass-produced beers here in the U.S., and Palm is a good example. Golden amber color. Light in body, but not thin, with bready, toasty, caramel malt notes married with stone fruit and citrus. Soft finish. Nicely balanced and very drinkable. A beer to buy when you’re hosting a party and you need one beer to keep a wide variety of beer drinkers content.
- John Hansell

Oddly enough, even though I’ve visited Belgium often over the last decade, I’ve never before sampled this ale from the bottle. (It is, or used to be, available in fine cask-conditioned form at the Horta Café in Antwerp.) It has a fresh, hoppy aroma, mixing notes of tobacco and dried leaf with appley fruitiness and a hint of orange zest. The body seems a bit sweeter than the nose might indicate, though, with fruity, faintly sugary malt not quite balanced by a rising hop bitterness, although the dry, slightly tannic finish shows its hop pedigree well. All in all, a commendable session beer, Belgian style.
- Stephen Beaumont

John Hansell
John Hansell is an equal-opportunity drinker. He writes about beer, wine and spirits. He is the creator, publisher & editor of Malt Advocate, a magazine for the whisky enthusiast.

Stephen Beaumont
Stephen Beaumont boarded his first plane at the age of 15 and hasn’t looked back since, obsessing about travel to the point that he gets nervous if he doesn’t have a ticket or two stacked on the corner of his desk. When he’s not running around in search of new taste experiences, he makes his home in Toronto, where a new cultural experience is only as far away as the next neighborhood.

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