Le Freak

Brewery: Green Flash

Type: Abbey Tripel

Alcohol: 9.2%

Country: USA

So I am continuing on my quest for finding my perfect Belgian beers, not made in Belgium. I have had a lot of terrible "Belgian" beers brewed in Denmark and elsewhere. Seems that if you want to say you are craft beer in Europe, you just brew a couple of Belgian style ales. Now I am always a bit skeptical about these non-Belgian Belgians. I have heard a lot about Le Freak so I have high hopes in finding my favorite triple, to go with my new discovery of my favorite Belgian dark ale, Trois Pistoles.

Pours a very opaque but relatively light orange, deep gold, very hazy. Massive fluffy white head, thick as whipped cream, leaves tons of curtains on the glass. Aroma is nice and fresh, and quintessential Belgian ale. Very yeasty, fruity and spicy, but not sharp, very round and sweet. The taste is similar, very fruity yeasty esters and a nice sweetness, what I have come to think I should taste from a good tripel. What I didn't expect was the rush of bitter hops that hits in the finish. Sharp bitter hop bite, combined with the high carbonation of this beer, really balance the sweetness. Too much sweetness is what usually turns me off of these abbey tripels. The addition of that nice hoppiness really turns this into a beer I can really get on board with. Pretty big mouthfeel, and very highly carbed, as I mentioned before. At almost 10% alcohol I thought there would be a booze burn in the taste, but it is 99% covered by everything else. I can honestly say this is an amazing beer, this has just become my go to when looking for a Belgian Abbey Tripel.