Tasting Notes: Rockmill Brewery's "Tripel"

I discovered Rockmill Brewery through the blog of my esteemed colleague Nicole: "A Local Choice". It can be found on my profile under Blogs I Follow. Nicole is fastidiously researching people in the Central Ohio area who are adhering to olde timey food production principles such as "not scientifically enhancing complete foods with utter fucking bullshit" and "refusing to process the beejeezus out of food thus turning it into slow poison". Her blog provides a thorough review of those producers she likes and their wares. To paraphrase the great Peter Hurricane McNeely, "If you don't respect what she's doing, then you have a giant dump in your pants". Unfortunately, given today's climate of lazy bovine American eating choices and fear of all things natural which might cost $0.79 more than the ConAgra engineered bullshit (even though you need to eat far less of the natural, eventually making the price difference come out in the wash) that gives people the 5 minute euphoric high accompanying their bodies turning simple sugars into diabetes-cradling fat, I don't expect many people to start picking up what NP is throwing down. But she is doing yeoman's work, and Crom bless her for that.

But to the task at hand. While in Ohio over Memorial Day weekend, one of my mother's work chums was so kind as to retrieve for me 1 bottle each of Rockmill's Tripel, Dubbel and Saison. A brief background, and please refer to the aforementioned blog which provides more thorough and actually "researched" information on Rockmill: Rockmill was apparently purchased by some guy who quit doing whatever it was he was doing so he could make beer in southeastern Ohio. He has discovered the water which runs through his land is the same mineral makeup as Wallonia, Belgium, in the heart of arguably the world's richest beer region. The brewery is located in Lancaster, Ohio. No, not Lancaster Pennsylvania where all the Yammies (slang for Amish) live. Given the Amish don't have Internet access on their electricless farms, I'm sure no one will be offended. If you haven't heard of Lancaster, Ohio, you are not stupid. Not much happens there. Yonks ago it turned out one of America's true badasses, William Tecumseh Sherman. But since the "White Tecumseh" took Ulysses Grant's whiskey-fueled rant about "teaching the South a goddamned lesson about respect" and torching the absolute fuck out of Atlanta and other racist redneck hotspots, not much has come out of Lancaster. And if you've been to Lancaster frequently, such as I have, then you will agree with me that this guy might be off his fucking tits to have opened a Belgian brewery there. Absolutely no market for it. But you have to admire his balls for having done so. Last night I had the distinct pleasure of trying the first of the three beers I brought back to Ohio, the Tripel. This is, without a doubt, the best Tripel I have ever had. It makes the Tripels I frequently drink from Belgium taste like when a guy is the last person to leave the office on Friday night and forgets to flush the toilet, and the piss sits there until Monday morning. The color is a rich, dense, unfiltered apricot-gold with a respectable but not intrusive head. The nose is reminiscent of the aroma of the freshly-washed hair of the chick you made out with in the hallway at the 8th grade dance. The one who blossomed earlier than the other girls. The one who put out because her mom brought home a litany of dudes with hair band t-shirts, several of whom had serious boundary issues. When the most recent beaux and her mom passed out after their last bong rip prior to the dance, our mistress helped herself most generously to the remnants of their fifth of George Dickel whiskey. This is why she allowed you most freely up her shirt during this make out sesh. After basking in the scent of the potion it is time to taste. The first sip dances on the palette like the closet homosexual who tries MDMA for the first time and wanders into a gay dance club, only to hear Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" erupt from the DJ booth. From this point the brew storms into your mouth and demands that you pay taxes and kiss its ring. It is like your sense of taste is a large slave plantation in rural Georgia, and W.T. Sherman himself, with his gang of union ass kickers, has stormed onto the property and ordered you off the land and into the woods like common savages, lest you go up in flame with the hay and the chickens. The finish is long and lingering, and recalls notes of subtle spiciness and the time you were coming off those really good shrooms and took a bong rip, then threw in Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and you sort of just melted into the sofa while that weird chick down the hall with the dragon tats danced by herself in the dark, slowly and disjointedly. And at 9.0% abv, there is no danger that sobriety will rear its ugly head and shit in the punch bowl. Suffice it to say, I count myself a fan of this delicious offering from Rockmill. I cannot wait to try the other large formats in the near future.

PS--I decided to delete Nicole's last name from this review. She probably doesn't need this popping up when potential employers Google search her name. Though she should be aware she is only as good as the company she keeps, this including her husband's asshole frat bros.