TLDR Beer Club

[MrWookie]

I've got another cheap beer to review tonight, Saranac's Belgian ale. It ran me just $1.59 for a 12 oz, which I think is as cheap as they come at Beers of the World. Saranac has had some decent brews, though, and I was curious how much Belgian I could get on the cheap. They say on the bottle that this is brewed in the trappist style, so we'll see what their interpretation is. The beer pours a clear (i.e., yeast-less) orange-ish color. There isn't much head, and it dissipates pretty quickly. It smells, well, not like a trappist. It doesn't have the earthy or fruity tones. It smells more like a tripel, spicy and malty. It tastes like a tripel, too. It's moderately sweet, not as sweet as some, and it's not as fruity. The spices, though, are quite nice. Cloves and cinnamon come through well. The malt is decent, and in spite of presumably filtering the beer, there's still some of the yeasty flavor, too. I'd say this is a modest step up in quality from Blue Moon, although they're not technically the same variety of beer. I'll file this next to the JW Dundee's porter as surprisingly good cheep beer. I give it [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. If someone's curious about Belgian beer but doesn't want to blow $10+ on a sixer of something they might not like, this would be a good beer to pick up.