Tynt Meadow: English Trappist Ale (England: English Strong Ale: 7.4% ABV)
Visual: Very dark cloudy brown with a good sized creamy brown head that leaves suds.
Nose: Chocolate dust. Roasted nuts. Light lactose. Figs. Dark fruit. Dried plums. Crushed peanuts. Ash.
Body: Creamy. Plums. Malt drinks. Bitter coffee. Light oak. Fig rolls.
Finish: Bitter coffee. Ash and smoke. Brown bread. Cashew nuts. Slight mint. Earthy.
Conclusion: Unlike a lot of the new Trappist breweries, this doesn’t seem to be worried about aping the usual Trappist style selection. While it wears some similar notes to a quad, this is very much influenced by the English Strong Ales and ESBs rather than its Belgian cousins.
This is creamy and thick, using a lot of dark fruit notes, backed by ash and earth subtleties to underline it. It isn’t as polished or big as a lot of the Trappist beers – it instead concentrates on doing a strong dark ale well. So, it is not unusual for a heavy British ale, but still works well
The creaminess is the most pushed character – nothing too sweet, just very thick – with light herbal notes and grounded backing meaning that it ends up a quite savoury take despite the dark fruits and higher abv.
Nicely filling and chewy as a beer – nothing too exceptional but does the base job well. I would be interested to see how aging one of these goes.
Not quite up to levels of awesome I expect from a Trappist brewery, yet at least, but different to most of that crowd – albeit more normal for a British beer. Ok. It is a good start, and I’m interested to see what else they bring out.
Background: Ok, it is kind of old news to most of you now – but I am still shocked by the (ok kind of slow) explosion of Trappist Breweries. It may not seem like much, but considering there used to be only six, amazing quality, Trappist breweries, the double digits amount available now seems like a spoil of treasures. As long as they keep the quality up that is. As you may be aware, a Trappist brewery is one accredited saying that the beer will be brewed by the monks themselves – with the money made going to help the upkeep of the monastery, and in general their quality is very high. This, however is the first English Trappist beer – I’m not a big on patriotism, or go England, or whatever, especially these days, but it was a curiosity that caught my attention. I’ve had it a couple of times before this, may grab one for ageing, but not really taken time to sit down and examine it before this. Grabbed from Independent Spirit and drunk while listening to Erocks metal covers of the Doom soundtrack. One day I will bore of covers to game soundtracks. Today is not that day.
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