De Molen Heen en Weer

Origin: Netherlands

Type: Abbey style Tripel

Color: Dark amber

Alcohol content: 9,5%

Recommended serving temperature: 10ºC/50ºF

Brewery: Brouwerij De Molen

Webpage: http://www.brouwerijdemolen.nl/index.php/en/component/content/article/60-de-molen-heen-a-weer.html

This delicious beer threw me off the first time I had it and, as a consequence, I thought I had to fixate its characteristics on a post to avoid any further confusion on my part the next time.

The reason it threw me off is, almost all the details printed on the label of the bottle that came into my hands were in Dutch. Although I pride myself in being able to get the gist of short and simple texts in Dutch, I could not for the life of me understand the type of beer I had bought, so I decided to find out the old way: trying it out and making out its characteristics through appearance, smell and taste.

That is where my problems (nay, tasty conundrums) started.

This beer has a very nice amount of foam, with a smell of fruits, herbs and flowers, details reminiscent of IPAs. However, the foam is a bit too soapy for that style of beer and looks more like the one abbey style beers tend to have. It is nonetheless abundant like in any good IPA, and very constant, almost perpetual.

In color it is a darker shade of amber, making it hard to see through, although this is also helped by a noticeable amount of haze and some slight sediment.

The taste came to reinforce the idea that I was indeed drinking an IPA, at least at the beginning. It has a nicely fruity feel reminding me of figs (curious how, despite it not being my favorite fruit at all, the beers who taste like it rank consistently high among my preferences), peach and soft strawberries. In other (brief) words, it tastes sweet.

In fact, too sweet to be an IPA. 

Any bitterness is left to the end, and even then, it is not a noticeably bitter and dry taste. It has a sort of bitter-sweet aftertaste that brings to mind that of some grapefruit juice to which some sugar has been added, or a malty sweet lime.

Furthermore, it has a creamy or oily kind of texture to it, like if you were drinking something dense. Something dense, sweet, fruity and with no alcohol taste at all to it. I had to look at the glass in my hand more than once to make sure I had not made myself a milkshake and was two warped to realize it. But no, it was a beer. 

A beer with a pretty serious alcohol content at 9.5% ABV, way more than the average IPA.

I was therefore at a loss to guess the type of beer this was. Torn between its smell and amber color and its foam and alcohol content. 

I like to flatter myself in thinking that I do not let myself be swayed by pre-conceived ideas, appearances or external attributes. It is, as it turns out not entirely true.

When I saw the soapy foam, the hazy darkness and the alcohol content in a beer from the BeNeLux, I immediately thought this was another Dutch attempt at making a Belgian style abbey beer, influenced by their neighbor's success and their own to some extent.

However, its aroma made me scold myself into thinking that this was overly simplistic. I was then edging towards concluding that this was actually an attempt at cracking a West Coast American style IPA on the part of a great European craft brewer who perfectly masters (and to some extent carries the burden of) the traditional styles of his homeland. Speaking plainly, it was an IPA brewed by someone very influenced by abbey style beers.

I was divided between abbey beer and IPA, sometimes closer to one, sometimes closer to the other, until I stopped and realized, it is also not far from a strong Witbier (such as the Hoegaarden Grand Cru): hazy, dark amber, with a soapy foam and a strong alcohol content. It just has less spices to it, and more varied fruits. Or even another Hoegaarden, the Verboden Vrucht, just less dark and spicy.

That was more or less my train of thought, undecided between IPA and various styles of Belgian beer, when I checked De Molen's webpage. 

It turns out that this beer is actually an abbey-style tripel. Nevertheless, of the things I found on their webpage, the style intended is of less relevance to me when describing the beer than the translation of its name. 

"Heen en Weer" means "here and there" in Dutch, and although the web talks of the beer's trips between their two locations (brewery and storage) as the motive for its name, one can imagine another reason, perfectly consistent with my troubles. This interpretation is no other than that the beer itself does not fit any shoe, or rather no shoe is perfect for such a beer. It is not an IPA, not a Witbier, not even fully an abbey-style tripel or a strong dark ale. It admits no labels, or admits them all to some extent. It is just here and there.

The expression here and there though also has the connotation of being scattered, and as such is maybe not the best name for a beer which, despite its different reminiscences is by far one of the best balanced and well-rounded that I have ever tried. However, if it has taught me anything, it is that I should beware of names and pay more attention to the things themselves, and this beer, as a "thing" is clearly brilliant.

So in short, I wanted a beer and wound up with a lesson in humility. A well deserved one at that. No more labels... especially if I can't understand them. Just order the beer, it's worth it.