Brewery Ommegang Three Philosophers

This is the second Ommegang beer I have had since I started my Year of Beer.  The first was an Abbey Ale that I really enjoyed but haven’t written up my review yet.  Ommegang is based in Cooperstown NY but does a wonderful job at making Belgian style ales.  According to the bottle, Ommegang is a division of Duvel, a beer I have heard a lot about but haven’t yet tried.

As much as I enjoyed this beer, I didn’t like it as much as the Abbey Ale, I look forward to picking up another to drink and review in the near future.  BUT, the fact that I didn’t like it as much shouldn’t detract from the fact that this a pretty damn good beer.

My wife bought me this beer while she was in New York on business.   She bought me a half dozen different beers and this was one of them.  She got in in the 750 ml size which I always like.

The bottle says it is 98% ale and 2% ale with cherries added but it’s actually more interesting than that.  The 98% ale is a nice rich and malty ale, the 2% ale with cherries is actually a cherry lambic.

I poured my first sampling of this beer into a pint glass.  It had a wonderful aroma.  There was a very nice scent of malt and cherries.  I think I would actually describe it more as a sour cherry smell.  The beer has a cloudy dark amber color and a nice head on it.  The head had a slight orange tint to it and there was a bit of lacing.

As you would guess, one of the main flavors comes through on this beer is the cherry flavor but it’s not an overpowering flavor.  It’s subtle and quite nice.  I was a bit worried that it was going to be an overpowering flavor since the lambic I tried recently was anything but subtle.

It had a wonderful and developing flavor.  At first you get a nice cherry with a slight hint of chocolate flavor but it develops into this deeper, raison flavor on the tounge.  It finishes with a slightly bitter, but sweet cherry after taste.  Again, the cherry flavor is there but it’s subtle.

The beer has an alcohol level of 9.8% so it’s certainly not lacking in kick.  The alcohol flavor is there but I didn’t think it was as noticeable as it is in the Ommegang Abbey Ale.  Still, I think that flavor tends to linger in your mouth and detracts from the overall drinkability of this beer.

Well, today, my wife turned this doubting Thomas into a believer.  There is a Wegmans just a few minutes away from Victory Brewing company which we just toured yesterday  (read my Victory Brewing Company Tour blog post).  Not only is it truly a fantastic grocery store they have an awesome take out beer section.  Pennsylvania has some wacky liqour and beer laws, one of them is that Beer is only available from a beer distributor where you have to buy it by the case or from a bar/restaurant where you can get it by the 6 pack.  Most bars have the standard crappy selection of 6 packs and they are overpriced.   Wegmans, on the other hand, has a cafe that they setup in their grocery store and in that cafe is a very impressive craft beer takeout section.   They had a very tiny little corner of the beer section that had a few cases of the large commercial beers.  The vast majority of the beer was from microbreweries across the United States and tons of great International beers.  They even have single bottles that you are allowed to buy which I thought was illegal in PA.

We had already spent more money that we had budgeted on our beer and lunch session at Victory Brewing Company so I didn’t want to spend a lot.  I got a few beers but now that I know where to go to get more, I am sure we will be making more frequent grocery trips to Wegmans.

I picked up:

• 1 750 ml bottle of Ommegang Abbey Ale
• 1 500 ml bottle of Samuel Smith Tadcaster
• And 1 355 ml bottle of Lindemans Framboise Lambic

I have never had any of these beers before so I am excited to try them.  In fact, I have never had a Lambic from any brewery but have heard some really interesting things about them so I am looking forward to trying it.