Gulden Draak

' Gulden Draak is a dark brown Triple Ale, which makes it an exception among the Belgian Triples. The second fermentation offers the nice creamy head, the full body and all the vitamins of the centuries old brewers yeast. It is a "thick" beer, that you can actually "eat" to adventure the complex taste. Gulden Draak balances a natural malt toffee-like sweetness with a mellow happiness and some hoppy accents. The aroma is round, sweet and reveals the 10.5 alcohol by volume' From Ratebeer.com

I told you guys that I was goign to try to get into sweeter beers and apparently my friend Blake read that and was kind enough to bring this beer back with him from Cleveland.

I almost didn't want to crack this bad boy open because it the bottle is so cool looking. White bottle, grenade shaped with a nice label on it. The label has a mechanical golden dragon on it, which you know is right up my alley. Real classy design all around.

What a foamy head this beer pours, I had to let it settle in before takign the picture because the head was 3/4 of the beer once I had poured it. The head reminds me of oatmeal. This is some sweet beer but it still has enough yeast and alcohol in it to give it a nice kick. If this was a solid food I would say it would be a sour bread with some sickly sweet apricot jam on top. Very flavorful stuff, which I can appreciate, but it is still a bit too much sugar for my tastes. This is certainly helping me appreciate this style even though I know I am still a ways off from being an avid Belgium drinker. Good beer, thats for sure. I recommend this to my beer buddies who are a fan of this style as this was passable even by my 'no Belgium beers please' standards.

Musical pairing: Pale Saints- In Ribbons (fairly quiet with just enough feedback to keep me from getting bored)