the beers of FUTENMA: Trappistes Rochefort #8

I have sad news, I had to get rid of the Rochefort #10, so I will not be reviewing that one. It's a small price to pay to get hard alcohol out of the barracks, but still it is sad to have to toss out one of the most highly rated beers in the world. But no matter, I have the Trappistes Rochefort #8 to review.
The Abbey Notre Dame of Saint Remy in Rochefort was started in 1230 and started brewing in 1595. The Abby had been burnt out during the French revolution and then sold to a man who tore it down and turned it into a farm. In 1887 the Monks of Achel bought the ruins and rebuilt the Abby and it's brewery. Unfortunately, the brewing operations would not be significant enough to support commercial sale until 1952. Only about fifteen monks live there, and the brewery operates three days a week.

The Rochefort #8 has a skinny, rather light brown bottle, that shows the contents are clear enough to let a small amount of light through, but not enough to see through.The internet says it's a yellowish brown color, we will see if the internet is right. The goblet that came with the sampler has a gold rim, nice bulbed stem, and a bubbler with an R the same font as is found printed on the bottle and goblet.It has a pungent, fruity nose from the bottle. Time to pour.

It has a lovely head, I would really call the color a very deep red. I don't know where they got the Idea that it was yellowish brown, reddish brown maybe, but not yellow.

Its fruity, with...some kind of malted cereal, but I can't put my finger on what. You can really taste the alcohol in this one, at 9.2% it's not easy to cover up, but I don't think the Monks of Saint Remy are trying to. It adds to the flavor, rather than being an unfortunate feature. Boy, the bubbler is just nucleating away in there. It does keep a nice head on the beer though. I have never been a big fan of head, being an ale man, but it certainly looks nice. Just something about the foam against my upper lip makes me feel like a kid drinking a milkshake. This beer just has a balance of hopps and malts that makes it hard to tell whether it is hopp heavy or malt heavy. I twirl it around my mouth and think "I suppose it is kind biased towards malt, but I cannot ignore the obvious hopp taste". I'm going to go ahead and say malt.
FIG! that's what fruit this tastes like! This tastes like fig that has caramelized on the tree. I don't know if y'all have had that, but try a fig that has just started to prune and you have the essential flavor of this beer. The fig taste becomes exacerbated as the beer warms, the alcohol bite has all but gone away. I don't know about room temperature, I'll let it warm a little more, but slightly chilled seems the way to go with this one. And listen to "Moonlight Serenade" by Glen Miller while you're at it, "In the mood" is a good one too.

and with a cigarette, like God intended.

The fruit taste increases as it warms, chilled is defiantly the way to go. Some might say this beer has a raisin taste to it, don't you believe those lies. This one get the blurry seal of approval.