Green’s Endeavour Dubbel Ale

Posted: February 20th, 2008 | Author: Stacy | Filed under: Beer Reviews, Craft Brew, Dubbel, Gluten-free, What's that in your fridge? | No Comments »

Apparently, Green’s has nine gluten-free beer styles, but Merchant duVin only imports three of them in the US. Bummer, kind of.

Today’s selection is the Endeavour Dubbel Ale. What a weird beer. On pouring, the color is just right for a dubbel, it smells right, the head is a little more convincing that in the Quest. But this beer is like Two-Face; one beer when cold, another when warmed to around 50 degrees.

Fresh out of the fridge, Endeavour tastes more like a Flemish Red Ale than anything else. Grape soda flavors, large carbonated bubbles,  a strange savory/sweet tang, and raisiny esters abound. A bit off-putting if what you’re looking for is a dubbel and not a weird Flemish Red. (If you’ve never had that style before, I do recommend Duchesse De Bourgogne from Brouwerij Verhaeghe — it’ll make your taste buds freak out)

Once it warms up, this does begin to taste like a  dubbel. The carbonation is finer, I can taste more of the subtle sweetness and there’s a banana ester nose. There’s still some tartness in the finish that’s not quite right, but it’s still probably the sorghum adding it’s weird tart/bitter flavor to the beer. At last, this is not so bad to drink!

Kathy reports that she saw Green’s being sold at our local Fred Meyer, which is interesting but not entirely surprising. Since we live in the hippie/nutty-crunchy part of town, the Hawthorne Fred Meyer tends to carry lots of gluten-free and alternative options.  But at $6 for a 16.9oz bottle, it won’t be a frequent repeat purchase.

Next up, Green’s tripel!

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