the beers of FUTENMA: La Trappe Dubbel Trappist

This is the first in a series of Trappist beers I bought in a "Route of famous Trappist beers" Sampler pack that contained 12 beers from 6 different Trappist Monasteries (also with each monasteries signature goblet or chalice). Our first beer is a dubble (double) trapist from the La Trappe Trappist brewery at the Our Lady of Koningshoeven Abby. The Abby came about when the Monks of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont left France to escape a rash of anti-clerical legislation in 1880 and moved to the Netherlands. They tried to make money by farming, but the soil was poor and they could not support themselvs, so their supirior Nivard Schweykart decided to start a small brewery for some extra scratch and it's been supporting them ever since.It is currently the only Dutch Trappist brewery.

So they have a nice goblet with this beer, and on top of that the bottle is nice looking too. Lets pop the top and see if the beer is as nice as the containers.

A pleasant lite hazlenut/dark chocolate nose to it, I'm going to poor it and we'll see how it heads...

It has a nice, small bodied head with fairily large beeds. I wish I could get a good picture of what's going on inside the glass, 'cus things are bumpin in there, which is to say that is is a very lively beer. It has a nice dark brown color. It does have some little bits floating in it, but that's something I think I can forgive. But enough about how it looks and smells, lets drink. Proost!

Another acidic beer, you can taste the alcohol, neither of these are necessarily a bad thing. I didn't know how to describe it at first, I really would have to liken the taste to a red wine (as much as I hate to do that). Its bitter, and has a fruit taste to it, but it is good (not to say in spite of these things, but because of them). I finished half the glass writing those two sentences if that tells you anything. It is an aesthetically pleasing beer, if things floating around in the glass don't bother you. If that does bother you don't come to Japan, that's a feature here, not an error. I find it strange that it tastes just slightly like the nose, but the nose is not quite like the taste, if that makes any sense to you.
Well, I say it is an exelent and classy beer, I give it my blurry seal of approval.