THE BELGIAN FILES: ST. FEUILLIEN TRIPEL

Here’s one I was kinda itching to try: ST. FEUILLIEN TRIPEL, created by Brasserie St. Feuillien in Le Roeulx, Belgium. It’s a well-distributed tripel that always beckons from the shelves. This time, I moved on it. ST. FEUILLIEN TRIPEL is a nice, yeasty tripel that was consumed in one fell swoop while watching “Lost” on TV. We hadn’t even made it to the second commercial break and this was gone. I liked its tartness and lemon/clove flavors, and there’s no mistaking a slight bit of funk in this one. Compare it to, say, LA FIN DU MONDE or WESTMALLE TRIPEL and it falls short, but not by much. It’s distinguished by a slightly lighter body, a nice dry carbonation and that funkiness, plus perhaps less of the floral hops you might associate with the aforementioned beers. Beautiful, thick pillowy head of foam. Why, you can see what I’m talking about in this picture, which I took with my BlackBerry Bold camera phone. I’d drink this again, and will likely seek out other elixhirs from the ST. FEUILLIEN stable. 7.5/10.