More Thanksgiving Beer: St. Bernardus 6

I'd mentioned just yesterday that I'm a fan of spicy Belgian ales when it's turkey time. Well as luck would have it, a good friend recently bought a variety 6-pack from St. Bernardus, an abbey-style brewery. He shared a couple bottles last night as we watched the Saints crush the Packers (three interceptions? really Aaron Rodgers?) and one stood out as a fantastic Thanksgiving Day beer, the St. Bernardus 6. Now this is the lesser of two dubbels (basically a Belgian brown ale) made by the brewery in alcohol, but compared to the boozier St. Bernardus 8, I thought the 6 had beer balance and drinkability. More flavor isn't always better. Some of the worst beers (cough, Bud Light Chelada, cough) are packed with flavor. Anyways, here are some brief thoughts.


St. Bernardus Pater 6
Dubbel
Brouwerij St. Bernardus

A- / 4.05
look: 4 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | drink: 5

Poured a mostly-clear dark amber with a tall white head and lacing. This beer strikes me as being two things: spicy and drinkable. At nearly 7%, this baby drinks like a mild thanks to the dry and thin body. As for the spice, phenols are the dominate flavor-maker, with a red peppercorn bite next to the also spicy hops. The malt provides a subtle toffee back note for the spice and help create the delicate balance. This beer could have a little more flavor, but I'll be damned if I couldn't put down a number of these without thinking about it.


St. Bernardus Prior 8
Dubbel
Brouwerij St. Bernardus

B- / 3.45
look: 4 | smell: 3 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 2.5 | drink: 4

In a word: underwhelming. Although a good beer, I found nothing to brag about. It looks like a nice monk brew, brown with generous head. Smell didn't do much for me. Some fruit and caramel, but it was faint. Similarly with tastes, there were some nice subtle complexities, but nothing grand and tasty. It was a mix of tart, sour berries, with bitter candy. I had a hard time tasting much because the beer was over carbonated. Really took a while for that to settle down. Still a very smooth drink, but not one I'd drop good money on any time soon. I'll stick to the Abt 12.