Chimay Cinq Cents Tripel aka White

 Chimay Cinq Cents Tripel aka White aka Tripel.

8 % ABV. Bieres de Chimay, Belgium. 

Revisiting a beer I haven't had in a long time. 

Lightly clouded, bold amber/golden hue, slim white head.

In the nose: fruit and spice, Belgian/ Trappist yeast. Candy sugar, bubblegum. Stone fruit and citrus. Classic.

In the mouth: Bright, bursting with fruit and spice. Belgian yeast in charge. Clean and lean. So much goodness going on here. Top notch triple. Sunshiney, boozy, sweet and spicy. Quite delicious. 

This one has never been my favorite  tripel, but my initial notes from January 2004 were unusually harsh and cruel. I gave it a 3.55/5, about 14 % below the average.  What was I on? Did I have an axe to grind  against this Trappist ale, or did I find a truly bad sample? Here are those seventeen year old notes: 

11.2 oz. bottle

Appearance; thickly opaque dark orange hue, with a full-flowering head of foam that dwindles and disappears almost immediately.

Aroma: sharp citrus, yeast, sour, must, ...that's it...

Taste: rather blase, little going on with the flavor, nothing to busy the palate.

Malt, yeast, thick citric, orangey feel, but little else, small, if any, hops, and fading flavor. Too sharp, too spicy, with little in the body and texture to balance that out. Feels drab, really, leaden, cardboard-y, actually. I don't re-visit this ale too often, so my memory is fuzzy whether this is supposed to taste so dreary.

Over halfway in, the fruitiness is broader, with more flavors swimming about, juicy, tropical fruits,pineapple, sweet, spicy, kicky...a far cry from the best tripels of Belgium. I may actually look into it, again, to investigate whether this sampling was inferior, and perhaps the brew was meant to taste much more amazingly. Until then...Chimay's is an underwhelming tripel experience.

I disagree, me of my early thirties, it's not that, it's actually pretty good. It's still not the best, but it's pretty damned good. Go drink it, people, forget what younger me said.