Leffe Blonde - Abbaye de Leffe S.A.

Jason

Massachusetts

3.4/5  rDev -4.2%
look: 3.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3

12 oz slender brown bottle with a freshness date on the back. Crystal clear golden colour with a thin bubbly lace that clings to the glass a bit.

Medicinal from the phenolics, hints of bubble gum and ripe pears with an herbal hop backing for the aroma.

Semi-thick mouth feel with a viscous carbonation and sturdy medium body. Sweet maltiness is the wins the in battle with a rolling sweetness throughout that throws out honey like qualities. Leaf herbal hop bitterness tries to clean up the sweetness but settles back into an underlying flavour. Clean estery alcohol is a tad fruity. Hits of phenols bring an obvious medicinal quality. Finishes sweet with a long lingering herbal and medicinal flavour.

Too processed and clean for a Belgian blonde, sweet to the point of almost being syrupy on the palate. There are other Belgian blond ales that are far superior to this one. Perhaps worth a try if you appreciate the style.

Serving type: bottle

07-22-2002 19:54:20 | More by Jason

Todd

Massachusetts

2.2/5  rDev -38%
look: 4 | smell: 2 | taste: 2 | feel: 3 | overall: 2

Appearance: Pours a very nice crystal clear golden beer with large carbonation bubbles that give way to a very patchy large bubbled foam head that lasts for quite sometime, then goes near still with some lace.

Smell: Soft clove-like aroma with a background yeasty / banana character. Fruity bubble-gum-like aromas too.

Taste: Smooth, a bit creamy and light. Malt sweetness is subdued at first with bubble-gum flavours throughout. Faint caramelly malts and honey flavours are detectable amongst a rather bready malt character, overall. Alcohol fusels come through as the beer warms. An odd yeasty/bready character follows and peaks, with a raw-ish feel on the palate. No real detectable hop bitterness, however the beer goes twangy for a brief second then falls back to more of the odd flavour. Finish is a bit dry with strong residual sweet flavours.

Notes: A very commercial Belgain ale. And, sadly, this beer might be a very good beer if it wasn't so damn clean & filtered -- most Belgian beers are bottled-conditioned. My advice is to skip this beer. It's not the worse, but there are plenty of non-commerical Abbey-style Belgian ales out there to drink.

You should also make serve at just below room temp, as the flavours seem to get better.

Serving type: bottle

11-21-2001 17:33:37 | More by Todd

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3/5  rDev -15.5%

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2.5/5  rDev -29.6%

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3.75/5  rDev +5.6%

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1.25/5  rDev -64.8%

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3.5/5  rDev -1.4%

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4.25/5  rDev +19.7%

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Illinois

2.5/5  rDev -29.6%

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3.5/5  rDev -1.4%

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Pennsylvania

4/5  rDev +12.7%

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4/5  rDev +12.7%

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3.5/5  rDev -1.4%

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4.25/5  rDev +19.7%

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3.75/5  rDev +5.6%

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3.5/5  rDev -1.4%

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2.75/5  rDev -22.5%

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Ontario (Canada)

3/5  rDev -15.5%

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