So, not a beer that I thought that I would ever see in the USA, but apparently there have been a few kegs that have made it stateside. Gotta say too that I’m not predisposed to mixing beers, especially when the two beers in question are so fantastic, and dear to my heart. I would never consider mixing these from the bottle, nor would I ever consider mixing the Dubbel and Tripel that I know some people have done in the past, but if the brewery thinks enough to keg the Tripel/Extra combo then you can bet that I’m going to at least try it. So here we are.

60% Tripel, 40% Extra. On tap at Sergio’s, likely one of the very few places one might find such a beer in the US.

The pour is pretty much as one would expect when considering the two individual beer, a golden hue, but the head seems extra rocky, pitted and has amazing retention. The nose and tastes are much drier and hoppier than I was expecting. It feels almost like the %s have been reversed (60/40 in favor of Extra) rather than the other way around. The bitterness is pronounced. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bitter beer or a De Ranke style beer, but again far more advanced in terms of hops than I was thinking it would be.

Creamy in the mouth (another prominent feature of the beer), there’s a floral bite that runs through it, with the Tripel sweetness not really being all that present other than providing the malt backbone to hold the beer nicely together.

Honestly it’s a nice beer, and it’s a little different so I don’t dislike it as much as I thought that I might. Having said that, I definitely prefer the cleaner lines and simplicity of the two, individual beers. I rarely see the point of such things, and although I enjoyed this I don’t see the value outside of marketing and helping to generate income for the brewery. Having said all of that, and despite what I say above about mixing beers, I will probably conduct a bottle combo experiment of my own in the future just for comparison’s sake.