My First Orval

It's been raining here in So. Cal so I decided to have a fire and kick back with some beer. It may seem impossible that it took me this long to get around to trying one of the classic beers of today but the main point is I finally did.

The closest thing I had to proper glassware was a Chimay glass, which looks pretty similar to the Orval glass. The head that is generated by Orval is bright white and airy- almost like whipped egg whites. The retention is pretty amazing too, though the etched bottom in the Chimay glass may have been helping that by sending constant streams of CO2 bubbles upward. The only smell I could get from it was a pretty faint wild yeast sourness. The taste was even harder to describe than the smell. Of course you get a touch of sourness and the standard earthiness probably from the Belgian yeast strain with a fairly moderate dry finish. An interesting beer and an easy drinker. I thought it deserved a 4.15, or A- on BeerAdvocate.