It’s fitting that the path to Watou, a village in the West Flanders province of Belgium, feels like taking a pilgrimage: you leave a motorway and immediately wonder if you have made a mistake; the road tightens, the sky gets bigger, and the West Flanders countryside begins to look both soft and industrial at the same time. The hop poles arrive like a geometric fence- the hops themselves, trained upward in thick green curtains. This is not the romantic, vague “beer country” of travel posters. This is real agriculture and logistics, set in a community that has been tied to brewing for long enough that the local crop and local drink are basically two stages of the same thing.

 

 

Then you hit Trappistenweg (“Trappist Road”) and there it is: St Bernardus, sitting in the fields like a modern beer campus with a memory problem, half farmhouse-origin story and half beer enthusiast’s destination. The brewery has spent the last decade building the kind of hospitality infrastructure that older Belgian breweries used to pretend they did not need: guided visits (later upgraded into a museum-style, own-pace “Brewery Tour”), a shop, a guesthouse, and the headline act, Bar Bernard, a 360-degree rooftop bar that turns the hop landscape into part of your tasting ritual.

 

 

And if you are the sort of beer nut who knows the shape of a Westvleteren bottle in silhouette, St Bernardus should hit you with an extra jolt. Because this is the brewery that, for more than half a century, made the beers associated with that famously hard-to-get Trappist monastery of Westvleteren. But this is also a brewery that can no longer call itself Trappist. It is not inside a monastery. It does not belong to monks. For a lot of drinkers, though, it is one of the most reliable, repeatable taste of that universe, available without a reservation system, a number plate, or a moral crisis about contributing to grey-market hype.

 

 

The St Bernardus story starts before there is any beer at all, and it starts with flight and cheese.

The brand tells a concise, polite version of its origins in the early-1900s: Trappist monks from northern France’s Abbaye du Mont des Cats crossed the border into Belgium to settle at a farm in an area called Watou. They renamed the farm “Réfuge de Notre-Dame de Saint-Bernard”, established a dairy (where today’s brewery stands) and began making cheese to pay the bills. The impetus, in their polite telling, is taxation: in France they would have to pay tax on revenues, whereas Belgium did not yet have the same income-tax structure.

 

 

The full historical explanation is tied to the long, jagged anticlerical conflict of the French Third Republic happened a hundred years after the events of the French Revolution. Years of instability and coups in France had led to deep distrust of Catholic institutions that were seen to be aligned with royalists. Anticlerical laws were passed in the early 1900s that effectively banned most religious congregations. And so began waves of religious exile into neighbouring countries such as Belgum - the Trappist monks of Abbaye du Mont des Cats were among these religious refugees.

 

Yes, they still sell cheese.

 

The Watou dairy was not a one-off exile spot for these monks. When World War I broke out in 1914 and northern France became a war zone, the Watou dairy remained outside the worst of the trench destruction. During this period, even more monks from Mont des Cats evacuated for safety to the Watou dairy.

On a happier note for these monks, after the war and by the early 1930s, political conditions in France had stablished enough for the monks return across the border back to Mont des Cat. The Watou dairy did not close, and was acquired by a local Belgian businessman Evariste Deconinck who carried on the cheese making business.

 

Evariste Deconinck (left) enjoying some Sint-Sixtus Trappist with his good friend André Cossey.

 

Before you wonder if you’ve somehow stumbled into a piece on Belgian cheese-making rather than beers, here’s where it really gets interesting for a Belgian beer fan.

Our story travels just 10 minutes down the road to the legendary Sint-Sixtus Abbey of Westvleteren – the most mythologised brewery in Trappist brewing. While its beers repeatedly top global rankings today, the brewery continues to brew only in small quantities necessary to support the monastery. Westvleteren’s beers are only sold through a strict reservation system at the abbey gate.

 

 

Of course, in the 1940s, none of that cult aura existed yet. Westvleteren was simply a Trappist abbey brewing to support monastic life. After experiencing the unpredictability of the Second World War when supplies of grain, sugar, fuel were not guaranteed, Sint-Sixtus Abbey might have become jaded about producing beers on a commercial scale. Their priorities shifted firmly back toward monastic life and self-sufficiency on their own terms.

So in 1946, Sixtus Abbey presented Deconinck with a unique proposal. Sixtus would share all of its beer-making secrets, and even its brewer, with Watou dairy-turned-brewery (our St Bernardus Brewery today). The Watou brewery would in turn be able to brew and sell its brews under the name of Westvleteren Trappist beers.

This transfer of lineage is perhaps St Bernardus’s favourite origin story to tell – especially to fans who are beer geeks. Apparently, brewmaster Mathieu Szafranski had brought with him to Watou not just the secret recipes of Saint-Sixtus, but also Westvleteren’s original yeast culture - the lineage of which could be traced back to when Sint-Sixtus Abbey was founded in the 1800s.

 

 

This story is especially compelling to beer geeks because yeast is no small detail in Belgian strong ales – especially in classic Trappist ales. A Belgian Trappist beer is often described to have distinctive notes of fruits and baking spices – notably cloves, pepper and orange peels. And yet no actual spices are dropped into the kettle. It is the unique strain of yeast that performs a biological magic trick, producing esters and phenols that give Trappist ales their characteristic fruit and spiced signature flavour.

An arrangement was reached. The monks of Saint-Sixtus would continue brewing for themselves on a small scale (as they still do today), while Deconinck’s operation in Watou would brew and commercialise “Westvleteren” beers for the market under licence.

This partnership arose from a pragmatic division of labour between monastic priorities and secular logistics. However, it gave birth to a romantic story about yeast that explains why St Bernardus today remains deeply connected to the Westvleteren orbit that many still see St Bernardus as “the Westvleteren you can actually buy”. To be scientifically realistic, it is hard to say for certain that the yeast culture preserved by St Bernardus could truly remain untouched by history through years of war and post-war scarcity.

 

(Source: Wojciech Treszczynski/CNN)

 

Indeed, Westvleteren’s official website implicitly dismissed this point by explaining that back in the 1940s, it was common for abbey brewers in the region to regularly lend yeast to each other to address wartime brewing gaps, and concludes that it would be “impossible” for the yeast strain that it had apparently given to the Watou brewery to be of a pure, unadulterated lineage since the founding of Westvleteren.

Both narratives can be true in practice: a yeast culture can originate in a time of sharing by Westvleteren and still become the preserved house culture assuming that St Bernardus had managed to stabilise and maintain it for over decades.

The brewing license between Watou (eventually renamed as St Bernardus Brewery) and Westvleteren originally ran from 1946 to 1976, but it was extended in 1962 for another thirty years, carrying the relationship to the beginning of 1992 when the license finally expired. By this time, as Belgian brewing organisations have become increasingly concerned about an uncontrolled proliferation of the “Abbey Beer” branding, a recognised Belgian Abbey Beer mark was created with the specific rule that the product must be made within the immediate surroundings of an abbey, under the supervision of actual monks and with profits directed to monastic needs and charitable works. An “Abbey Beer” was no longer regarded as a style, but a recognised range of beers with a direct connection to an abbey.

St Bernardus sits awkwardly across these systems. It is historically entangled with Trappist monks (albeit cheese-makers) and Trappist beer, but it is not Trappist under the new legal criteria. Thus, Westvleteren could not renew the license in 1992.

The immediate post-1992 became a fight for St Bernardus Brewery to inject new life into a brand suddenly forced to stand alone. It came to be acquired by another Belgian entrepreneur, Hans Depypere, who was apparently teased by an employee on day one that he was a fool for putting capital into what was a tiny 6-man brewing operation because the previous owners had not spent a Euro on the place for decades.

 

(Source: Bierpassie)

 

Be that as it may, the Depyperes kept its faith in the brewery’s new era and over the years slowly invested in St Bernardus’s branding and revitalisation by developing new lines, more tanks, a new €14 million brewing hall, the Bar Bernard, and even a museum-style Brewery Tour. Under the family’s leadership, exports were expanded significantly and the St Bernardus Abt 12 became one of the most widely available quadrupels in the world.

St Bernardus today sells roughly 50,000 hectolitres (about 15 million bottles) a year in more than 80 countries, with roughly 55% sold in Belgium and the United States as the largest foreign market. Its brewery also sees about 100,000 a year. Put that next to its Trappist sibling, Westvleteren, the cult pole star in this story, is still brewing on a radically smaller scale at just over 7,500 hectolitres. That said, larger Trappist operations such as Chimay still dwarf St Bernardus at about 170,000 hectolitres a year.

From this perspective, St Bernardus occupies a very specific middle lane in the Belgian beer imagination: larger than a cloistered curiosity but still small enough to retain some quaintness as a place-bound brewery with memory. And unlike Westvleteren, whose scarcity is part of the experience, St Bernardus has accessibility as part of its identity, effectively offering drinkers a way into a similar historic orbit without the ritual of the abbey gate. In fact, beer enthusiasts sometimes regard St Bernardus as genuinely higher quality than some “real” Trappist beers. While it may not technically be a Trappist beer, it deserves Trappist-level respect through and through.

On the brew side, St Bernardus is often described as faithful to old recipes while using modern controls. While most Belgian breweries keep its process details vague, St Bernardus is unusually open about its fundamentals.

The brewery uses hops coming from its own hop field, established in 2009 right beside the brewery and maintained by local hop farmer Johan Derijke. Two main varieties are used: Hallertau Magnum for bitterness and Kent Golding for aroma.

 

 

They describe mashing as a gradual heat-up over about 90 minutes to around 78°C, using pale malt and, for dark beers, adding dark roasted malt; for the witbier, pale malt plus wheat. Then lautering in a filter tun over roughly two hours, boiling for about 90 minutes, and using a whirlpool to separate solids. They cool wort to around 24°C to be suitable for their top-fermenting Belgian ale yeast.

 

 

The same yeast strain is carefully preserved by St Bernardus – in fact as a form of insurance, it keeps samples of its yeast at two universities in Belgium. Whatever the exact origin story of that culture, the brewery treats it as heritage worth safeguarding with institutional redundancy.

Time is the other ingredient St Bernardus keeps insisting on. The St Bernardus Abt 12 receives two months of cold conditioning before a 2–3 week warm-room refermentation in bottle (just as Champagne is made, fresh yeast and sugar are added before bottling).

 

 

St Bernardus’s core flavour through-line is yeast-driven fruit and spice laid over malt density, usually with a finishing structure that pushes toward bittersweet rather than outright sticky sweetness.

It is of course tempting to directly compare its brews with those of Westvleteren today. Fans of this style invariably point to a comparison between the flagship quadrupel St Bernardus Abt 12 and the Westvleteren Brewery-produced Westvleteren 12 due to their historical link. According to St Bernardus, the Abt 12 was brewed based on the strongest dark beer recipe from its licensed Westvleteren brewing era, and they insist that the same recipes, yeast and beers continue to be produced after 1992. The Westvleteren 12, similarly, is the flagship brew of the elusive Westvleteren Brewery today. Both are strong dark beers that come in at around 10% ABV, both are quadrupels.

 

(Source: Yves Herman/Reuters)

 

In side-by-side tastings, the Westvleteren 12 is described as being noticeably deeper in character and more chocolately, while its St Bernardus counterpart, the Abt 12, is seen as having more balanced acidity and fruitiness.

The truth is that these beers are similar but not the same today. Since the license era ended, Westvleteren had re-centred its production inside its abbey and has developed with different yeast and process choices – such as using yeast obtained from Westmalle (since 1976) and open-top fermentation (St Bernardus uses modern tanks). What survives is not exact sameness so much as shared ancestry.

 

Click here to read our review of the historic Westmalle Dubbel and Tripel.

 

At the same time, there is a strong counter-current of people saying, in practice, St Bernardus is the one they actually buy and drink, and that the quality gap is either small, situational, or not worth the scarcity premium and grey-market pricing attached to Westvleteren. You will see recurring recommendations of Abt 12 as the best available stand-in for Westy 12.

St Bernardus produces a sizeable range of beers today – several labels are claimed to be tied to the “original 1946 recipe”, and several other slightly novel ones that vary the monastic-era theme. The core portfolio ranges from the flagship quadruple Abt 12, to light Belgian dubbels such as the Prior 8 (also dating back to 1946) and Pater 6 (a brighter everyday abbey-style ale), and the St Bernardus Wit which was developed in collaboration with Hoegaarden’s respected founder, Pierre Celis, renowned for the 20^th century revival of Belgian witbier.

 

 

Some of its most celebrated limited releases include the Christmas Ale – a seasonal quad made for release in the winter period that leans into dark richness and spices, and the very contemporary-looking Tokyo – its first canned beer that is a high wheat ale that holds the middle between a white beer and a saison.

 

 

St Bernardus fits into Belgian beer culture in a very particular way: it is a brewery built at the intersection of religion, rural economics, and modern export logistics, all while producing beers that still rely on time, refermentation, and yeast character. The cultural role it plays is also paradoxical: while it does not wear the Trappist ale badge, it keeps a part of monastic-style Belgian beer legible and more importantly, accessible, to the wider world without losing its soul.

Beer Review: St Bernardus Pater 6 (Belgian Dubbel)

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Deep chestnut brown with ruby highlights.

Aroma: Rich and malty with dry fruits and a lightly spiced feel to it. It’s layered with a malt backbone holding everything together. Opens with caramel, glazed buns, and brown bread dough sitting right at the centre. Some savoury soy sauce notes building, dried fruits layer in behind with apricots, sultanas, dried plum, and a touch of orange peel. There's a warm, herbaceous manuka honey quality, and a lightly lifted edge from the white florals and clove spice sitting at the top.

Palate: Medium-bodied with a notably yeasty character upfront. Opens with more of that brown bread quality here, now alongside roasted malt. A sweet-bitterness comes through from the dark chocolate sitting alongside toffee and caramel, and a touch of prune reinforces the dried dark fruits. There's a soft citrusy acidity and mild dryness that cuts through the richness to keep things from feeling heavy. A constant toasty bitterness is present but restrained.

Finish: Really long. Lightly chocolatey and faintly burnt around the edges, with a subtly savoury soy sauce umami lingering. Trailing yeast and a long, slow fade of clove spice.

My Thoughts

St Bernardus‘s Pater 6 is an honest, cohesive, well-balanced dubbel that delivers all the core markers of the style – dark fruit, yeast-driven spice, malt richness and restrained bitterness – without leaning too hard into any one of them. It’s much richer relative to its actual sweetness (in a good way I should clarify). It’s got an intriguing soy sauce and umami thread that appears on both the nose and finish, and gives it a distinctly savoury undercurrent that most dubbels don't have to this degree. The yeast character also adds a rustic, slightly rough-edged character while the malt-forward simplicity and easy drinkability makes it reminiscent of a bock.

For a 6.7% beer it's surprisingly easy to drink. It’s also a really versatile food pairing candidate considering that balance between the malt richness, acidity and dry finish.

 

Beer Review: St Bernardus Prior 8 (Belgian Dubbel)

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Deep mahogany.

Nose: Dense and layered, with a similar malt-and-dried-fruit foundation to the Pater 6 but with a noticeably fuller, richer character. Brown sugar and caramel sit at the centre, alongside buttered toast and roasted malt. Some dried figs and dried plums giving it a darker, stickier fruit register and a savoury umami depth from the aged soy sauce – less prominent than in the Pater 6, but still there as a background element. Faint cloves and a mild nuttiness round out the edges.

Palate: Rich and structured, with a more prominent dry backbone. Opens with citrus, dark plum and raisin. A crisp, citrus zest dryness provides most of the structural lift here, and balances out the malt richness. A subtle earthy warmth of brown rye bread spice, then some bruised apples bringing a mild, savoury-adjacent quality.

Finish: A very pleasant dryness that takes over cleanly and efficiently, cutting through the palate richness. Citrus, pepper and bruised apples linger into the tail. It's a clean, palate-resetting finish; longer than the Pater 6's and with more structure behind it.

My Thoughts

The Prior 8 sits just a step up from the Pater 6 in richness and depth: darker fruit, more caramel weight, a stronger malt presence– but it doesn't use that extra ABV to push into heavy or sticky territory. What's most notable is how effectively and rewardingly the dry backbone functions: it's prominent enough to cut through the malt richness on its own terms, which also makes this an unusually food-friendly beer for the style. A curry or any richly spiced dish would work well here thanks to the dryness that actively cleanses the richness of the beer and the food.

Overall, this is a richer classic dark Trappist-style profile executed without excess: comforting, layered and also very drinkable for its strength.

 

Beer Review: St Bernardus Belgian Tripel

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Deep straw.

Nose: Bright, aromatic, and tropical-leaning. It’s a noticeably different register from the two dubbels. Mango and coconut upfront, then smooth banana and a light caramel sweetness. A warm spiced cloves lift behind the fruit layer. There's a distinctive floral yeastiness to it: light chrysanthemum and a faint herbaceous grassiness giving it a clean, perfumed quality. A very minor earthy brett character in the background; it's not prominent enough to define the nose, but noticeable if you're paying attention.

Palate: Nutty, malty, fruity and citrusy in quick succession. It opens with a crisp, dry cereal note and a firm malt backbone, before banana bread and sweet orange peel come through with a warmer, rounder quality. A spice mix of cloves and coriander seeds mid-palate add an herbal warmth. It leans dry rather than sweet on the whole and keeps the palate rather feeling active and defined.

Finish: Clean and crisp, with a firm dryness carrying through to the end. More oxidative fruit notes emerge here, I’m getting persimmons and orange peel. Toasted cereal notes trail out slowly, and a faint spice warmth lingers alongside them.

My Thoughts

Wow! St Bernardus‘s Tripel is the most deceptively drinkable beer in this lineup. At 8.0% ABV it sits at the same strength as the Prior 8, but feels considerably lighter and brighter across every section. It’s crisp, it’s really tropical fruit-forward and has an interesting bit of brett that adds some personality. Where the two dubbels lean into dark fruit and malt richness, this one moves in the opposite direction with citrus, cereal, floral yeast and spice, with a consistent dry backbone from palate through to finish. Harmonious and well-structured throughout.

 

Beer Review: St Bernardus Abt 12 Belgian Quadrupel

Note: In case you’re wondering, “Abt 12” is pronounced “aht twelve” in Dutch!

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Deep brown with reddish highlights.

Nose: Rich, fruit-driven and decadent, with an aged, nutty quality that sits somewhere between a dry oloroso sherry and a well-kept fruit cake. Opens with concentrated dark fruits; dried cherries, dried cranberry and prune. A warm, sticky sweetness of caramel and toffee sitting underneath, and freshly roasted chestnuts add a dry, earthy nuttiness. A roasted bitterness of coffee beans at the edges alongside lightly spiced notes.

Palate: Deep and full, and quite balanced rather than heavy. It opens with a long, smooth caramel and toasted malt core, brown sugar weaving through the mid-palate alongside dark fruits of blackberry and cassis. Toasted malt evolves and revealing more and more umami depth, eventually landing on this distinctive bitter-umami character that reads unmistakably like caramelised chicken essence (or concentrated chicken stock). A mild acidity and a liquorice-like spice run through the backbone continuously. There's a light tannic grip from mild dry oak and a faint bound leather book note on the back palate.

Finish: Long and resolves slowly, very clean, slightly resinous and dry. A light boozy warmth carries into the finish, accompanied by a dry, minty liquorice edge that persists well beyond the swallow. A long bittersweet coffee note settles in and lingers along with something close to a hop bite at the very end.

My Thoughts

The Abt 12 certainly earns its rep as the most layered and concentrated beer in the brewery’s lineup. It’s got well-defined dark fruit, and the way the toasted malt evolves across the palate from caramel sweetness into bitter umami is the most technically interesting progression, with such a savoury depth that most quadrupels don't have.

Liquorice and mild oak character provide some structural backbone, which is what stops all that malt richness and dark fruit from collapsing into sweetness. The bittersweet coffee finish with its hop-like bite brings the whole thing to a clean, dry close. What's most impressive is that despite the density and concentration at 10% ABV, it remains something you can keep returning to without palate fatigue. That balance between richness, bitterness, acidity, and dry structure is what defines it.

 

Beer Review: St Bernardus Wit (Belgian Witbier)

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Soft, hazy straw.

Nose: Light, honeyed and citrus-forward, with a distinctly spiced character. It opens with banana and a soft yeastiness, light honey sweetness and clean understated white florals in the background, and a distinctive fleshy nectarine note. It’s got an interesting spiced character; something close to rempah (turmeric and chili) and some dried Chinese coriander.

Palate: Medium-bodied, crisp and stone fruit-driven. Opens with toasted cereal and a dry wheat character. Fleshy peaches, nectarines and some apricot come through, with a slight tartness from the skin pulling it toward the drier side. A gentle dryness persists through the mid-palate and gradually sharpens into something closer to citrus zest toward the back.

Finish: Clean and lingering, with dried apricot and a long citrus-forward tanginess carrying through to the end. Dryness continues well into the finish, fading slowly alongside dry cereal notes and a subtle wheat sweetness underneath. Coriander reappears in the background with a mild herbal warmth.

My Thoughts

The Wit is the clearest change of pace in this lineup. What makes it more interesting than a straightforward witbier is the spice character on the nose — that rempah-adjacent warmth is genuinely unexpected and gives it a more complex aromatic profile than the style typically delivers. It’s also quite enjoyable to see some stone fruit doing most of the work on the palate rather than the citrus peel notes that dominate many witbiers. The dryness is the structural constant here: it appears early on the palate, sharpens toward the back, and persists through the finish, which is what keeps the wheat sweetness from making the beer feel slack. This is more straightforward than the Abt 12 or even the Prior 8, but it's precisely calibrated for what it's meant to be – crisp, refreshing, fruit-forward and very drinkable.

 

Beer Review: St Bernardus Christmas Ale (Belgian Quadrupel)

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Deep chestnut brown.

Nose: Dense and highly caramelised, with tons of layers and a clear tension between rich confectionary and a distinctive tart fruit edge. On first pour, that combination of sour cherry brightness and rich caramelisation briefly recalls for me the sharp-sweet profile of a Flanders red ale, though here it is firmly anchored in dark malt. Opens on dark malt, lightly burnt caramel and toffee, moving into light molasses and a white cold brew coffee note that adds a faint roasted sharpness. Dark fruits such as dark cherries, raisins and plums sit alongside a spiced warmth of cinnamon, a touch of anise and something medicinal and syrupy that reminds me of Chinese herbal syrup (Pei Pa Koa) with a slightly resinous sweetness to the overall aroma.

Palate: Deep and layered with aspects of dark malt, dark fruits, warm spices and some savouriness. Opens with a full and rich entry that does not feel cloying thanks to a well calibrated acidity. Dark malt sets the impression, joined by digestive biscuits, espresso liqueur, treacle, toffee, then dark chocolate and burnt caramel form a concentrated caramelised core while a robust line of sour cherries and orange zest cuts through to add lift. Dark fruits develops into raisins, plums, with more cherry woven throughout. There’s a savoury soy sauce thread running underneath. There’s also a prominent warmth from clove, pepper and allspice, and a mildly liquorice and anise edge that sharpens the spice profile.

Finish: Long and bittersweet, carrying dark chocolate, espresso liqueur and gula melaka (palm sugar) into the close. Warm spice continues, with pepper and clove and a gentle drying grip of citrus zest tightening the back end. The savoury dimension becomes more apparent here, with some aged soy sauce, chicken broth and Marmite-like notes adding umami depths. It finishes warm, drying and still slightly zesty, with spice and savouriness persisting after the sweetness fades.

My Thoughts

This is an impressively festive but balanced brew! There’s so much to love her ewith the aroma and palate layered with concentrated caramelisation, dark fruit, chocolate-leaning roast accents and warming spice – and yet it never at any moment tips into being overwhelming. The tart cherry and citrus zest elements are especially important, because they provide lift and structure to what could otherwise be a very dense malt profile.

This feels like a variation of the St Bernardus Abt 12 for its weight and depth, and I’m guessing it is based on a similar dark malt and fruit foundation, but here the added emphasis on spice and zestiness rather improves the balance. The warming spice and citrus-driven dryness make it feel more agile despite its richness. All the elements are well integrated, with the savoury soy and broth-like notes adding a coherent dimension.

This drinks in a way that suggests deliberate balance rather than sheer intensity, and while clearly designed for winter, the structure and dryness would allow it to work comfortably beyond the festive season. I only hope this seasonal expression was available more often.

 

Beer Review: Watou Tripel

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Hazy gold.

Nose: Rich, aromatic and evocative of baked goods. Opens with a sweet, warm malt impression with glazed buns and honey, then a bright, lifted edge from orange and lemon peels sit right on top of a powdery malt biscuit and wheat note. Both cooked and preserved fruits, moving from apricot jam into poached pears, with a soft maltose sweetness tying the whole thing together. There’s also a clear Belgian yeast spice that shows up easily as clove, giving it rounded sweet-spicy finish.

Palate: Rich and flavourful, and it stays fresh thanks to the lifted carbonation. Opens on malty sweetness and honey, then leans into poached pears and fresh apricots, with citrus zest running alongside the fruit. There’s a persistent light zesty feel throughout that keeps the richness in check. Rounded sweetness shifts from honeyed malt into a mild burnt sugar bitterness. A light bready, yeasty character sits underneath as the citrus continues to flicker at the edges.

Finish: Long and gently drying. Apricot jam alongside burnt sugar and a trailing bread-yeast note. It tightens up a bit as it goes, becoming slightly hop-bitter and more firmly dry, while clove sweet-spiciness and soft orange peels comes through at the end.

My Thoughts

Watou Tripel comes across as a very drinkable, zesty, spice-edged tripel with a clear focus on fruit and malt, especially with that distinctive biscuity, bakery-like malt note. The Belgian yeast spice is obvious on both nose and palate, especially the cloves, but it stays well balanced and never dominates the fruit or turns the beer too much phenolic.

It also tells its own story: it does lean a touch sweeter than other tripels, with honeyed malt and ripe pear and apricot feeling more prominent than sharp bitterness, yet it still finishes with a satisfying dryness and a light hop-bitter tightening that brings the profile back into balance. The richness feels fresh rather than heavy.

Overall a very balanced, tasty and accessible tripel, with enough structure and a clean close that I could see it working as a go-to bottle when I want either a classic tripel or just a great tasting Belgian brew that would delight anyone.

@CharsiuCharlie