Last night, David and I took the opportunity to drink Duvel’s new draft product Duvel Green at Coles Bar and Restaurant. We had great time and both us enjoyed the new draft. I must admit that I really enjoy Duvel and have put back quite a few bottles of it in my time, so I was quite excited to try the new draft offering.

Duvel Green is a lighter, lower alcohol, draft version of regular bottled Duvel. The first thing I noticed when the beer was poured was the white, foamy head billowing up out of the signature Duvel glass. The beer under the beautiful cumulus head was a bright golden yellow. Green has a nice, lively mouth feel that was a little more prickly on the tongue than original Duvel. The biggest difference I noticed was that the spicy hops taste from the Saaz and Styrian noble hops was much more pronounced than I expected it would be. This larger hops taste comes from Green being single fermented versus the triple fermentation and aging process used in creating bottled Duvel, which allows the hops to mellow as the beer matures. All these nuances were explained to Dave and me as we sipped away on the Green by the very knowledgeable and friendly Tori, from Brewery Ommegang, which is owned by Duvel. If you’re interested, Beer Advocate has a great interview with Michel Moortgat, the CEO of Duvel Moortgat Breweries, explaining the process used to create Duvel Green.

Overall, I found it to be a great new beer, perfect for a whiling away a summer afternoon on a shady patio with friends. It is crisp and refreshing and, at 6.8% alcohol, it’s a better session beer than its bottled cousin at 8.5%. And Tori, if you are reading this, Dave apologizes again for having a Chimay.

TAGS [ DUVEL | DUVEL GREEN | DUVEL BEER REVIEW | DUVEL GREEN BEER REVIEW | BEER REVIEWS ]

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 10:29 am by Pete and is filed under Beer Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.