Green Flash Trippel Ale
ABV: 9.7%
Origin: Vista, California, USA
Website: www.greenflashbrew.com
Created to mark the brewery’s third anniversary in 2005, the curiously spelt Trippel has the traditional looking ingredients list of a Belgian abbey beer, with added sugar, Styrian Goldings and Czech Žatec hops and Trappist yeast, but nonetheless ends up with a contemporary Californian flourish.
This golden beer has a relatively low and fine creamy white head, with notes of honey, sugar, spices and faint fruit on the aroma. A firm honeyed palate has spicy ginger notes and with a definite note of hops, though at only 24 IBU. The beer stays smooth with spirit tones and a faint yeasty pear and detergent note.
The finish is gently bittering and honeyed, lingering with grassy and rooty hop tones. Overall this is a complex and interesting beer that delivers plenty for its high ABV with considerable delicacy as well as vividness of flavour, like a good Belgian with the colour turned up.
The beer helped build Green Flash’s reputation as an accomplished producer of Belgian-inspired styles – you can read more about the brewery in my review of Le Freak. My sample was from a 650ml (22oz) bomber bottle bought at Whole Foods Market in San Diego’s Hillcrest in October 2012.
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