CulturAle Press

Ten Top Tripels: #4  Root Down Tripel, Phoenixville, Pa.

Date:  March 7, 2019

The Story—  We featured this beer over a year ago, but felt it deserved another showing in the context of unusually good tripel ales.   The original post is here. and gives you information about Root Down and Phoenixville.

Some information on the style that we haven’t offered before:   We’ve tasted nearly 400 beers that claim to be tripels.   Only a fraction measure up to our concept of the style.   A tripel at its best is similar to a strong devil-ish Belgian gold, but not quite as dry and with a bit of a more pronounced fruitiness.

Perhaps tripels vary as widely as they do because the style is a very recent one and really only developed as brewers copied ideas and terminology about strong beers from other brewers.   Some tripels really do have “triple” the malt and triple the alcohol of the brewery’s “singel” but for most it’s just a designation of well above average strength.

Tripels emerged from abbey breweries, but only relatively recently  Its abbey origins usually mean using a yeast that yields a bit more funk than an average strong Belgian ale and the style lends itself for some non-traditional spicing if the brewer isn’t heavy handed with the adjuncts.  Both the concept and the term have been around for a long time, but some vague consensus on a style concept only began in the 1930s.  Originally tripels were usually dark — just up a stage from dubbels– but today the term implies a golden color.  It wasn’t until 1956 that Westmalle renamed their “Superior” strong gold ale “Westmalle Tripel” and truly set the standard.  The Westmalle easily makes our top ten tripel scores, but I don’t trust our tasting notes from 1989.

The Beer—  The Root Down version is slightly heavy for the style but unusually authentic for a US brewery.   Metallic and quite spicy with a nice bit of pepper and tropical that increases as it drinks.  Ellie found a long bitter and some salt from the alcohol.

Value —  Good.  a $4 taster (about four ounces as best) is pricey, but this one is worth the dough.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

 To start the month of March we’re featuring our top ten tripels over the past several years– these are wonderfully complex and even delicate strong golden ales.   At their best, Tripels are among the best beers in the world.   At their common norm, they’re heavy handed, big-boozed and barely better than the malt liquors of the 20th century.   Here are ten beers that could show the rest of the country how it’s done.

 We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”