King River ‘Waiting For Godot’ Belgian Tripel

Rating:

“Deep golden in hue with notes of pear, fresh apple, clove and banana. We carefully create our own Belgian Candi syrup for each batch to provide a perfect mild golden sweetness and balance the malt character in the beer.”

Glassware: Tulip.

Appearance: Pours a light pastel orange with golden hues when held to the light. It only a forms a short white head which quickly settles to a collar. Fairly reasonable lacing for the lack of retention.

Aroma: KR is one of our favourite breweries of late as their passion for old world styles matches ours, but it’s their attention to detail that we’re most fond of. This Tripel is displaying pretty conventional qualities of peppery spice, coriander, orchard fruits, candied lemon, angostura bitters, yeast esters (clove, banana runts), golden raisin and tang.

Flavour: Pretty darn good for such a difficult style. Nice and yeasty, fruity and tangy upfront. Some doughy malt coming through as well. That “farmyard” character of wheat grains, subtle funk and orchard fruit mixing with the Belgian yeast through the mid then laying down for a fruity, spicy and herbal finish that endures.

Mouthfeel: Light, sparkling texture with a vibrant carb. Mild-medium body and the 8.2% ABV was very well behaved.

Overall: An impressive interpretation of this Belgian classic. A lot of non-Belgian breweries completely mess this style up but KR have done a magnificent job keeping it balanced and light yet maintaining its natural complexity. High quality stuff.