Grimbergen Optimo 10°-1/3L

Grimbergen Optimo 10°

This is a strong abbey-style beer from the Grimbergen monastery, brewed as an Easter ale but available all year. It has a rich, heavy, complex nose with malt, black treacle, petroleum, and possibly pepper. Flavour is quite sweet, chewy, cloying and puddingy, but the sweetness is counteracted by a malty, treacley bitterness. There is a fruity, port-like quality to the palate too, along with a cheesiness towards the finish, all of which suggests that this would make a good after-dinner beer. Deep amber/chestnut colour, head that forms with much noise and effort but evaporates almost instantly. Moderate condition. Caramel, toffee, licorice and burnt brown sugar in the nose, with a suggestion of raspberry as it warms (Like a Liefmans Frambozen). Quite thin in the mouth, you seem to drink it by osmosis rather than swallowing. Hints of malt whisky, raisins and caramel but all quite delicate and flleeting. More whisky malt in the finish with alcohol coming to the fore and a hint of bitterness towards the end.