Belgian Table Bier - Pre-tasting

I just got around to bottling this one. It finished out at 1.011. Which puts the ABV at 4.8%. I had about one bomber's worth left when I ran completely out of bottles. Being one not to want to waste beer, I decided to do a tasting on it. But before we get into that here's some info on the importance of carbonation in tasting beer.

Did you know that humans cannot actually smell liquid? Rather we smell the gas coming off of the liquid. Think about it. Have you ever opened your fermenter at high krausen and tried to take a big whiff? I have, and it's intense. And then have you opened a fermenter to smell it once activity has died down and the yeast is dropping out of suspension? It can be hard to smell much of anything.

So why is all of this important? Because 85% of taste is actually smell. I'm sure we've all seen (or done it ourselves) people swirling wine. They're doing that to release gas so that they can smell the wine better and therefore taste it better.

Now with us beer nerds we don't need to swirl. We have a torrent of CO2 coming out of the beer carrying beautiful flavors and aroma a long with it. The reason I mention all of this is because this will be an incomplete tasting as I don't have any c02 to help me out. So give me a couple weeks... but here we go... also since it's uncarbed I'm not even bothering with mouthfeel.

Belgian Table Bier

Appearance - A nice medium brown. When held up to the light the highlights are an amberish color. Despite not being carbed there is still a tiny bit of CO2 escaping to form a tight ring around the top.

Aroma - After a vigorous swirl...... The first thing is green apple. Followed immediately with hints of toasted bread then chocolate. There's a bit of spice followed by a great whiff of the brewer's gold hops. If you've never used them they're fantastic. Earthy and a touch spicy with bits of black currant.

Taste - Even not carbonated this beer has a lot going on. At first I get a touch of roasted quality. It's followed with apple and spice. At the back there's a combination of earthy/black currant/chocolate. All with an assertive, but very smooth bitterness (thank you first wort hops).

Overall - I'm looking forward to drinking this beer fully carbed. For a table beer there is a lot going on.