I DRANK A GREEN FLASH THIRD ANNIVERSARY BELGIAN TRIPEL

.....and it was pretty good, too. GREEN FLASH out of San Diego are on a roll these days. I’m not sure how many IPAs and how many Belgian-Style ales they’ve got in the lineup right now, but they can’t be accused of not giving the people what they want. I know they’ll got some serious street cred in places that can’t get their beer; the guy at Spuyten Duyvil Grocery in Brooklyn was practically apoplectic about how good their beers are. Me, I’m still reeling from that SAISON I had on tap a few months ago, by far the best thing of their I’ve had – and they’ve all been good-to-great. Same goes with this THIRD ANNIVERSARY BELGIAN TRIPEL. I bought this whilst visiting my sister in Santee, CA, and I actually passed up all these LOST ABBEY bombers of beers I probably could’ve put on eBay for $75/each in favor of this one. It’s actually kind of a mystery wrapped in an enigma, if you will. Is this the same beer as GREEN FLASH TRIPEL? Was this beer truly sitting on the shelves since 2006, which was the third anniversary of the brewery, and when I believe this bottle was created? Could it be that both are true? Help me out here, folks.

My take on it was that I truly enjoyed how intense the yeast-heavy spices were – that peppery, almost smoky taste you get from a good tripel was here in spades. That said, it was more smoothed-out than your typical Belgian import, and not quite as robust. A product of it being aged on a liquor store shelf, perhaps? Or is that just how this beer is? I thought it was very good, not great – went through my notes and found that I’d never had one of GREEN FLASH’s Belgian-style beers before outside of that mammoth Saison. So there you go. 7/10.