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Kit Review: Northern Brewer La Petite Orange

Every once in awhile, a good deal on a beer kit hits my inbox. This time around, I received a nice offer from the folks at Northern Brewer for their La Petite Orange. It's described by them as a lighter take on the traditional Trappist Dubbel. What's the finished brew like? Let's find out.

The kit is Malt Extract based, but also has a nice compliment of pre-crushed specialty grains in the box. In addition, there's a bag of Belgian Candi Sugar. Replacing part of the extract with Belgian Pils malt allowed me to perform a Mini-Mash with the kit's grains, rather than simply steep them. Other than that, I followed the instructions as written. Of the two recommended yeasts, I went with Wyeast's Trappist High Gravity (a.k.a Westmalle) strain.

Fist off, the beer has nice clarity and a copper hue that's paler than I expect from a Dubbel. The dense eggshell cap has decent staying power and leaves quite a bit of lace behind.

Whether I approve of the color or not, it's the taste that counts. I definitely approve of that.

Dark fruits dominate the nose with cherry and plum. There's a bit of fresh biscuits and a hint of spice as well. When the beer hits the mouth, the aromas follow. Bitterness is extremely light and bolstered by a touch of alcohol warmth. The alcohol caught me off guard, because this beer is only a hair over 6.0% ABV. In my opinion, the alcohol in a Dubbel should be as highly masked as possible. That's not the case here.

The beer's body is quite light and has soft carbonation. Yours truly should have bumped up the priming sugar, because there's not quite enough tingle going on for this style.

Since the kit produces a couple of cases worth of beer, I did go ahead and set aside half for aging on Sherry soaked Oak Chips. I'm going to give that beer a few weeks on the wood and then bottle it. Then, I'll compare it against this beer to report the differences.

As far as the beer goes in its present form, I have to say that I like, but don't love it. More dark fruit, in addition to a bit less booze would boost my opinion. I'll check back in a month with my thoughts on this beer's oak aged cousin.
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