Cuvée Des Trolls - Cuvée Spéciale

Its been a long time since I've done any beer reviews and considering how much alcohol I tend to drink that's a bit puzzling to me. Ideally after returning from Finland it would only make sense to do some sort of three part special on, Karhu, Koff and Lapin Kulta, but they're cruelly not available in the USA (or at least not where I live). Therefore, I found this strange Belgian troll ale today, which reminds me of the Finntroll performance at Tuska... and after all everyone knows trolls like to booze it up. I think.

'Cuvée Des Trolls' comes as a corked and caged 1 pint & 9.4 oz. bottle, which pours out a hazy piss yellow color with a foamy thick white head to it that lasts for a few minutes. The immediate smell I pick up on is an almost purely lemon scent, though some sweetness, yeast and hoppiness can be found too. The taste as well as is fairly lemony, but also some slightly green apple hints, as well as a bit bready and spicy hops are to be found. Sort of typical Belgian Pale Ale and a witbier is what it reminds of, therefore nothing special, but its decent. Nevertheless its a refreshing ale to drink, especially with this intense heat wave these past couple of weeks. The 7.5% alc. by Vol is decent too and by the time you finish off the bottle I'd imagine you'd be feeling just fine.

I haven't tried the original version of Cuvée Des Trolls, but apparently from what I've read this 10th anniversary edition isn't especially different. Still, curious to try the original now. However at almost $10 a bottle and the fact that its not radically different from some other Belgian ale's means I probably wont be buying this particular one again, but at least I'll enjoy what I have in this bottle and soon go to bed.