Beer Review time...

Thanks to smithersmpls.com I came across a beer called Urthel Hop-It (the sponsor of  his team many years ago.) I went to Surdyk's and found out that Urthel makes several beers.

To explain...

Urthel is a contract brew labled as "Dutch with a Flemish Touch." What this means is that a woman by the name of Hildegard von Ostaden she started the Leyerth brewery but contracts out to a Flemish brewery to be able to meet demands. (I might not have my facts straight... feel free to correct me.)

The Urthel Hop-It is her verison of a Belgium/Flemish IPA. High hops with a touch of sweetness. The Urthel Triple is in the style of a Trappist Triple ale.

In Minneapolis you can find Urthel at Zipp's and Surdyk's

Today at Zipps I found the Quadrium, something I don't remember seeing before. Here is my opinion on it...

Color - nice dark copper color

ABV - label says 11% and it does show up in the flavor

Taste - It's a sweet a.k.a. malty beer. Heavy on the toungue, very sweet and almost cloying. I agree with another review that the sweetness has almost molasses like flavor. For some it might be too sweet. In my case, even though I prefer "dryer" drinks, I tend to like strong flavors. So I actually like the flavor a lot. But... for good or bad you do taste the alcohol. I don't mind this (kinda a reminder it's a strong beer.) But others might view it as a negative.

I guess this is supposedly done in a Trappist quadruple style. Not a style I have a lot of familiarity with versus say a triple. From what I've found on line... besides alcohol content going up, a duple is sweet, a triple tends to be less sweet,  and a quadruple tends to be closer to barley wine. Which this version does come close too.

So overall sweet, high alcohol, tasty. But I tend to like the beers that Urthel is producing.

It is bottled conditioned so that helps. But... depending on transport and storage it can produce a lot of foam if you don't let it settle for a bit.

more info at www.urthel.com