Green's Tripel

Have you ever consumed a beer and thought, "Whoa, they way over-glutened that beer!"? Or, you know, have horrible reactions to gluten. Maybe you are Novak Djokovic and your recent switch to a Gluten-Free diet is purely to make your tennis game better, yet you still want to drink beer. Who knows?

The point is, if you are intolerant of gluten, you still have some beer that you can drink. 

Behold: Green's Gluten Free Beer.

Green's is a Belgian Brewery that makes a few different beers, all of which are gluten free. This particular beer is a 8.5% ABV Tripel Blonde Ale. Basically, instead of using malted barley and wheat for the sugar, the gluten free beer uses buckwheat, rice, and millet. As a result, the beer tastes different from what you would normally expect. 

I decided to do a little experiment. Since it was the first time I have ever tried this particular beer, I thought I would try a tasting out of a tulip glass (above) and a goblet (lower in the post). By using the two different glasses, which are both appropriate for the style, I could see how the flavor and nose profiles change based on the glass. 

In the tulip glass, I could only smell booze. Granted, this is a fairly strong beer, but top quality strong beers are able to either cover the booze smell, or blend it into the aroma of the beer. The taste was sweet, but subtle. To me, it was hard to define the flavor. Even as the beer warmed up, the only real taste I could pick out was alcohol. 

The aroma in the goblet was, as expected, less boozy. The tulip glass gathers the nose all in one location, giving the possibility for a more pungent smell. The flavor was pretty similar. It just didn't really remind me of a Tripel. It was a little too sweet and didn't finish crisp. It wasn't bad, but it didn't knock my socks off. If it were actually bad, I wouldn't have finished the beer. 

If I didn't know that it was gluten-free, I wouldn't have guessed it. It tastes like a gluten-full(?) beer. Of course, you have to keep in mind that I have never had a gluten-free beer before, so I just may not have noticed the difference yet. This particular beer is not my cup of tea, but especially if you can't eat/drink gluten, it is worth checking out. They also make a Belgian Dubbel, which I am excited to try, but that will come in a different post. 

Synonym Beer: Victory Golden Monkey

Glassware: Tulip, Goblet, Chalice

If you want me to look at a particular beer, drink, place, or have anything to say to me, email me at monksandmalts@gmail.com. You can send me cool photos too, if you like.