#390: Boredem

I don't know who or what possessed me to pick up a great big bottle of tripel one Friday after work, but I do wish that daemon had exercised a little more better judgement than to guide my hand to Bornem Tripel.

To be fair, it comes Van Steenberge, who bring us sugar bombs like Gulden Draak and old favourite Piraat among many other sweet and boozy pleasures, the best of which are a delight and the worst a cloying mess. So where on this spectrum does Bornem Tripel land? 

Pouring a hazy gold we get a pleasant and enticing nose of sweet honey with just the faintest yeasty prickle. The palate gets a bit more, with a fullsome doughy sweet vanilla marshmallow that almost seems to exand to fill the mouth, such is the effervescence of the beer. There's enough to enjoy there, really. It's simple and sweet, not quite too sweet but just lacking in anything else to liven it up. That doughy vanilla sponge sweetness is desperate for the lemon syrup and herbal flutter that just barely suggests itself, but those points of interest remain ghostly suggestions. A razor thin edge of wheaty prickle lingers in the asftertaste but you need to dig through the sugar to find it.

All told, this is about as plain is a tripel can get. It's far from being a bad beer of course, but one small glass was more than enough. 

#389: Browning

Since the seeming retraction of Newcastle Brown Ale from its position of near ubiquity in Irish offies, the style hasn't tended to be one at the tip - or indeed any section - of the tongue. In recent years, though, brown ales have resurfaced among supermarket own-brand ranges, a welcome and genuinely interesting prospect. There was a time when the pale ale among the red ale, stout, pale ale trifecta of accessible and adventurous brewing was about as exciting as it got. Now we're getting dinky fruit sours, convincing saisons and, today, beautiful brown ales from the own-brand section.

I always have time for Dot Brew thanks to their commitment to leaning into niche styles and, more importantly, brewing them well. There tends to be a perceptible attention to detail and engagement with the style, and that's no different with this here Dot Brew Brown Ale from their current Aldi offering. In the glass it's a mostly clear mahogany with a glimmer of deep red rust, perhaps suggesting a slight murk. The aroma is a very faint dusting of cocoa powder, though to be fair I reckon I've served this colder than any brown ale desires to be. This presents as pleasant milk chocolate and brown sugar on the palate which, while sweet in the main, is not without its light brace of leafy bitterness. It opens up with warmth to a sort of soft cola or mixed berry fruitiness, but in the main it's plain, in a very good way. I could settle into this, and then settle right into another. At 5% it invites a session, a warm and cosy one.

If I had my wits about me I'd gather some other examples from the current micro-revival of accessible brown ales but we'll have to wait and see on that one. For now, take this to be a very lovely beer at a pretty good price, and far more interesting than Aldi probably needed it to be.