Trappistes Rochefort Triple Extra | Belgian tripel 8.1% ABV 35 IBUs
If I’m not wrong I had the 2021 edition.
Trappistes Rochefort Belgium 🇧🇪
Ordered from Great Beer Experiment Singapore 🇸🇬

Tl;dr nice to get Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy’s take on this classic Belgian style as a once off, but I’ll stick to the usual suspects.

Rochefort Triple Extra occupies the ABV between Rochefort 6 and 8 and has got all the Belgian tripel notes you know in spades: bready, yeasty, candied sugar, spice. It’s also musty and rustic. This is definitely NOT Westmalle Tripel or Tripel Karmeliet.

Intrigued, I take my first sip. Oh wow, there’s a hop bitterness that you don’t find in Rochefort’s usual lineup. They didn’t just rejig the original gravity and use paler malt — it’s its own thing! A few sips more and my palate gets used to it, but the bitterness seems a bit too harsh and is a little out of place.

I enjoyed drinking Rochefort Triple Extra and reflecting on how it stands on its own instead of lining up on the 6-8-10 continuum. It’s an awfully rare beer, though, and the aforementioned Westmalle and Tripel Karmeliet already occupy that headspace I have for go-to Belgian tripels, so this will probably be the last I’ll have of its kind for the foreseeable future.

YMMV. Give it a try if you can find it!

@hopviously