Ryan<\/strong>: This beer has ascended to the ranks of ridiculous in the short span of a year.<\/p>\nIf you read the tasting notes above you can see that we came away surprised, if not mildly impressed, by this offering from New Glarus. I think it’s safe to say that, after tasting this with a year of age on it, this beer has now far<\/em> exceeded our expectations.<\/p>\nTypically we talk about what has faded in a beer after some time in the cellar and, subsequently, what those flavors have been replaced by. In this instance, nothing really faded with the Chocolate Abbey but there were a handful of fresh surprises.<\/p>\n
You don’t have to go far to find the first addition; take a whiff and you still get some creamy milk chocolate and milk duds on the nose but you also get a good punch of mint leaves and tangerine peel.<\/p>\n
The body is equally as chocolate-y as a fresh pour, if not more, with a distinct chalkiness to it – which is balanced out by more mint, bubblegum, passion fruit and orange slices.<\/p>\n
The finish is incredibly smooth and the carbonation is spot on.<\/p>\n
We can’t quite say that this beer has peaked – in part because that was our last bottle – but if you have a few lying around we’d suggest cracking one open to see if you get the same results.<\/p>\n
We’d also like to know if you’re as blown away by this as we were.<\/p>\n
Karl<\/strong>: I really do quite like this style of beer, because there are still really no expectations when I open one, and it’s just pure surprise when you get through the tasting.<\/p>\nLast time we all agreed on the straightforward \u00a0bubble gum nature of this beer, but hot damn, it’s gotten weirder – I detected mint and circus peanuts popping around in there as well. Throw in some cotton candy and you’ve got a gosh damned carnival of a beer.<\/p>\n
This is a fine, fine beer that I wish came around more often.<\/p>\n
Andrew:\u00a0<\/strong>Chalk this one up as another win for us in our adventures in cellaring.<\/p>\nWhat was a very good beer fresh had turned into a rather remarkable beer after just one year.<\/p>\n
I remain somewhat perplexed by this style of beer, including some of the head-scratching flavors found in this particular offering, but whatever, it’s tasty and I’d like to know what happens after two or three years.<\/p>\n
The best way I can describe this beer is it’s as if someone melted up some Frango mints (it’s a Chicago thing) and threw them in a bottle. That’s exactly what we have here. Some vanilla, but mostly mint and chocolate with incredible\u00a0Belgian\u00a0yeast flavors to make this one hell of a complex beer.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t <\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[936,369],"yoast_head":"\nReview: New Glarus Thumbprint Chocolate Abbey<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n