Name: Abbey Brown Ale

Brewer: Not sure (Corsendonk is the retailer, not the actual brewer)

Style: Belgian Dubbel

Vintage: 2007

Bottled On: N/A

Cellared On: September 12th, 2007

Original Tasting: October 10th, 2007

Corsendonk’s Abbey Brown Ale is the first true Belgian Dubbel that I’ve sampled. Rumor has it that this exact beer is actually sold under multiple different brand names in Belgium, Corsendonk just being one of them.

This Abbey Ale pours a dark brown color with a very assertive, cream-colored head. It gave off very subtle fragrances, I was mostly reminded of ripe dark fruit. Great head retention here, lacing still clung to the class well after I finished.

This brew had a nice sweet fruity taste. “Pleasant” is the word that comes to mind. This is not an overpowering beer by any means, as the flavors are somewhat subdued here. I’m reminded of sweet malts and dark fruits, especially raisins, as I taste this. Hints of milk chocolate come through also. Very little bitterness. It finishes with the same fruity sweetness with a little bit of toasty alcohol on the tongue.

I was expecting a bit more creaminess to the body, but instead it came off a bit thin, maybe even watery to me.

All in all, an enjoyable brew, very easy to drink. It could almost be a session beer if it had about half the alcohol (it comes in at 7.5% ABV, which is at about the top end of the Dubbel style).

Six Month Tasting: March 19th, 2008

Not much change in the apperance of this brew. It doesn’t smell too much different either, although I am noticing a Belgian yeast kind of smell, that I didn’t note before. The dark fruit is still in the air, although it’s reminding me of a Coke-Cola kind of smell of all things.

There’s still a pleasent burst of malty flavor right up front as you taste this brew. The raisin flavors are especially noteable to me. Unfortunately, right after that initial burst the taste of this beer just dies off quick. Very quick. It’s a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of beverage. There’s no real off flavors here, just an abesence of depth and complexity. As you can imagine, the finish is super quick and unspectactular.

After that last paragraph, my wife is urging me to make a joke, but I’m resisting. This is a PG rated blog, dammit!

Cellar Outlook: I’m not sure about this one in the cellar. It has a decent ABV% and is bottle-conditioned, so it has a shot to improve over time. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it faded away…

Six Month Cellar Outlook: I guess I can’t be surprised it’s just kind of fading away after I predicted it above. I did notice that right at the top of this bottle is a “best before” date of 1/19/09 that I hadn’t noticed before. I would be shocked if there was even the slightest bit of improvement in this beer going forward.

Next Tasting: March 2008