Day 374: Ommegang Three Philosophers

I love giving gifts. Like head-over-heels, madly in love with gift giving. I want to marry it and have its babies, and then give those babies gifts, I love it so. I guess it goes without saying that holiday shopping season is like crack for me. I get such a rush finding the perfect gift or assembling a gift basket. And the wrapping! The wrapping! God, I even love wrapping gifts. I'm going to need rehab come January.

I work for beer in case you want to hire me!

If you're shopping for a gift for a beer lover, you should consider something from Brewery Ommegang. Typically I can't pass up a brew from Ommegang, they're that good.  Today we're going with the Three Philosophers. This was the first beer I drank once I knew I had the final beers for the blog covered back on November 28. If anyone was paying attention to me at TJ's that night, they may have wondered why I was giggling delightedly while I drank it. Now you know.

Three Philosophers poured a hazy mahogany color with a dense off-white head.  I can usually find differences between the smell and taste of a beer, but all my notes indicate that they matched up perfectly.  Lots of earthy and rich scents and tastes. Dark fruit, molasses and chocolate. It's sweet but not overly so. It's super smooth without any hop bite. There's lots of malt goodness. 

What I didn't know or at least read and instantly forgot is that Three Philosophers is blended with a small amount (2%) of Liefmans Kriek, an authentic cherry ale from Belgium. I guess cherry is in that  dark fruit flavor that I noted, but I didn't discern cherry in particular.

Beer stats

Style: Quadrupel ale

ABV: 9.7%

IBUs: 19

Rating: Excellent 

Links to prior reviews for Ommegang

My review of Aphrodite, a raspberry and pear ale

Gary's thoughts on Three Philosophers and the possibility of pirate dogs