Sierra Nevada Ovila Abbey Quad with plums

Beers made by monks are held in very high regard in the beer community.  They are frequently cited as some of the best beers in the world, and most are pretty readily available.  The ones that aren’t are highly sought after.  Most are enjoyed fresh but they have a reputation of improving with age, particularly Westvleteren 12, Orval, and Chimay Blue.

The popularity of monk-brewed abbey ales has resulted in a slow but steady growth in the number of secular breweries trying to brew imitation beers.  This beer is the result of something a bit different.  In 2011 Sierra Nevada partnered with the monks of the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, California to raise money for the rebuilding of an old rundown monastery.  The beers are supervised by the monks, utilize abbey brewer’s yeast, and are made with ingredients grown by the monks, but the actual brewing part is done by Sierra Nevada.  Basically, it’s a quasi-monastic twist on contract brewing.

This is an abbey quad brewed with sugar plums.  I had previously had the Ovila Dubbel.  It pours a chocolate-brown hue with minimal head formation or retention, though this is a ridiculously wide glass.  There's plenty of room for the foam to spread out.  Some lacing is present.  The beer is very opaque.

I thought the double had a good but odd aroma, very atypical for the style.  Whereas most doubles have some fruity combination of dates, figs, candi sugar, and spicy phenols, double was mostly chocolate, banana, and bubblegum.  Quads are basically the bigger badder brother of doubles and so I’m not surprised Ovila Quad with plums smells similar to Ovila Dubbel.  They both share dominant aromas of milk chocolate, banana, and bubblegum.  The quad also has notes of plums (obviously) and some date sugar, but both are more subdued.  Overall, a very similar aroma to the double.

The plums stand out more when I actually taste the beer.  The smell of banana and date doesn’t really translate into the actual taste of the beer, but that weird bubblegum flavor is still there.  A new flavor of spicy yeast shows up as well.  However, sweet chocolate is still the most prominent flavor, with plums and gum following it up.  Imagine chocolate-covered-plums-flavored chewing gum, with a dash of an unidentifiable spice on top.  Tasty, but weird and out of place in a quad.  The texture of Ovila Abbey Quad is pretty close to the real deal though.  Quads are generally very carbonated and comparatively dry given their alcohol content; most other beers in the 10% or higher realm are on the sweeter side of things.  Ovila is well-carbonated and finishes on the drier side of your typical quad.

This is a better beer than Ovila Dubbel.  However, I still wouldn’t rush out to buy this next year, assuming they make it again (they’ve been switching up the Ovila releases every year).  I also didn’t really feel like finishing the last two bottles in my four pack; I guess I’ll see if this will taste better in a year.