Sunday Night Suds - Sprecher Abbey Triple

This week's Sunday Night Suds looks at Sprecher Abbey Triple.

I first saw Sprecher while perusing the beer aisles at the comprehensive Eagle Provisions in Brooklyn. For those who have never visited Eagle, its truly quite an experience. The store has beer sorted by state and country and it winds its way up and down aisles all over the store. I had been looking for off the beaten path Leinenkugel beers in the Wisconsin section of the store when I saw a couple of four packs which had an odd looking logo on the four pack holder. When I got closer, I saw that the logo was the state of Wisconsin with a "K" inside of the logo. I was unfamiliar with the beer and the logo, but when I got back to a computer I looked it up and found that the beer was certified kosher by the Wisconsin K - through the auspices of Rabbi Benzion Twerski.

A few months later I was in Chicago buying wine for the last days of Pesach. I was looking around Binny's and saw that they had numerous varieties of Sprecher (all of which had the Wisconsin K on the packaging. As it was Pesach I could not buy the beer, but nothing stopped me from looking at the merchandise (hey its not baal yeraeh if its not yours. After Pesach was over, I went back to Binny and purchased three varieties, including the Abbey Triple.

I saved the Abbey Triple for this week as we were hosting our annual hakaras hatov kiddush. When I first opened the Abbey Triple this past shabbos afternoon and poured some for myself and two neighbors I was struck by three things. Although short and stubby, the beer bottle held more than the average bottle as it was 16 ounces. Also of note was that the beer poured a much lighter color then I was expecting - almost a maize color - like what you would expect from a hefeweizen. The third interesting point was the flavor of the beer - it did not taste anything like any Trippel that I had ever tried.

So what did the beer taste like? It was very sweet with loads of fruit and sugar up front. The beer did have some alcohol flavor and a bit of a kick, but at 8.4% abv it was not very pronounced. Still, it was a very pleasant beer and if it weren't for the fact that I can't really get it here, I would try them a few at a lunch to see how they paired.

As mentioned above, Sprecher Abbey Triple is certified kosher by the Wisconsin K. There is a logo on the four pack holder and the Wisconsin K website indicates that Sprecher's is under their supervision (although the website does not state which specific varieties are certified kosher).

For the experts' take on the Sprecher Abbey Triple please click here http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/144/2851.

As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver.If you've tried this beer or any others which have been reviewed on the kosher beers site, please feel free to post your comments (anonymous comments are acceptable).

Finally, if you have seen this post being carried on another site, please feel free to click http://www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com/ to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!