Beer Around Town

The latest in Bridgeport’s “Big Brews” series is the Fallen Friar, a Belgian style Tripel, partially aged in oak wine barrels. After missing the initial release party at the Bridgeport brewery I was pretty excited to try this, so I picked up a bottle at Belmont Station.

A few months back I was given a bottle of Big Sky Brewing Co.’s Belgian tripel that was aged in wine barrels, so I was hoping to make a nice comparison between these, but at the time I had not heard of Bridgeport’s release, so alas it was consumed with no side-by-side comparison. Big Sky’s was outstanding, the wine barrels adding a lot of red wine character, acidity, as well as a big sour note in the finish, probably one of the better beers I’ve had this year. Bridgeport’s was much more straight forward, the wine barrels subtle, just adding a soft woody note, faint acidity, and mild grape flavor. I think a bit more barrel character would have really helped. The bottle says only 35% was aged in barrels, maybe half and half would have done more for it? Overall I think this is the best of their “Big Brews” so far. A bit hot, needs to have the alcohol settle a bit, but a nice full estery nose, soft on the banana, a bit more on the cloves. Notes of apricot and peach in the flavor. Could be a bit dryer in the finish, not as crisp as most tripels, but maybe done so to bring out the barrel flavor more. The carbonation was weaker for a tripel, needed a very vigorous pour to get a good sized head, and even that couldn’t be sustained for long, no lacing behind, feeling flat by the end of the glass. The lack of heavy carbonation left the body a bit heavy, a bit more would also probably make the finish seem dryer, but maybe this was all intentional to allow the barrel flavors to stand out a bit more. This might improve slightly over time as the excess alcohol notes fade. Also, maybe a slim chance that any buggies in the barrel might eat up some residual sugars and make the finish a bit more dry, maybe giving some tartness, we can only hope.

Anyone else get a chance to try this yet? Any thoughts?

I’d really like to hear how the draught version and bottle version compare.