Trappist Ales - Orval

Series Introduction
Rochefort
Chimay
Westmalle

The final entrant to my Trappist Ales round-up is my favorite, the legendary Orval. Unlike the other Trappist breweries, the monks of Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Orval do not brew a range. Instead, they produce a single beer, one that doesn't conform to any extant style. It is simply Orval.

But what is Orval? Is it the green, lively beer they first bottle, sticky with hop resins? Or is it the older beer, pulled from cellar shelves after a year or two of aging? This ale is austere--bone dry and tart, a meditative beer for a quiet evening.

The monks have brewed a singular ale, but the essence of Orval is its mutability. Paradoxically, even a single bottle contains many beers. I consider Orval one of the finest beers in the world, and by that, I mean I love them all.

Legend
On the label you will find the picture of a fish with what turns out to be, on closer inspection, a golden ring. The legend behind the depiction is this: before there was monastery at the site, Countess Mathilda of Lower Lorraine was sitting at a spring there.

It is said that, having sat down near a limpid source to rest, she plunged her hand into the water, and in doing so dropped there her wedding ring. Being very afflicted, she addressed an enthusiastic prayer to Our-Lady: at once, the ring reappeared on the surface of the water, in the mouth of a trout. The countess were very merry, and claimed “Truly, this place is a Val d’Or (a golden valley)…”

This is a monastery founded on legend. Is it any wonder they've made a legendary beer?

History
The Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Orval is located on the border with France in the Southern tip of Belgium. The first monks arrived from Italy in 1070, but the site was never occupied and was actually abandoned for a period. Monks returned and completed the monastery in 1124. The monastery suffered the same trials as others in Europe--fire and wars plagued it, and it was abandoned as a consequence of the French revolution in 1793. Monks rebuilt Orval beginning in the 1920s, and they established a brewery there in 1931. (This shows the monks fine set of priorities: the monastery was not completed and consecrated until 1948.) Although the current brewery only dates back 77 years, records show that brewing was a part of monastery life centuries ago.

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Brewing Style
The monastery at Orval is modern, but the monks trace their history back so far that it fades into myth. This can also be said for the beer they make, a modern product which nonetheless might have been brewed at the site five hundred years ago. The current recipe was created in the 1930s, a product of the work of the first brewer, a Bavarian named Martin Pappenheimer and John Van Huele, a local Belgian brewer. Both emphasized hops, which characterize Orval to this day.

The brewery is very hands-on. The monks have the barley malted to their own specifications, inspecting each season's harvest and adjusting the recipe to make sure it retains its characteristic orange color. They also make their own candi sugar, letting it crystalize on strings "like cracked ice" (Jackson). They hop the beer with whole-flower Styrian Goldings and Hallertau- Hersbrucker.

The element that most distinguishes Orval, however, is the yeast. A single ale strain is used in primary fermentation, a process done traditionally in open vats. It is then given a secondary fermentation in closed cylinders using a complex blend of ten strains that includes brettanomyces. The flavor of the beer isn't funky, though--brett is a minor organism in the ecosystem of Orval. During this phase of fermentation, the beer is dry-hopped, as Van Huele first suggested (unique among the Trappist beers). The monks don't filter Orval at bottling, and the elixir is left to ferment a third time in the bottle for another eight weeks.

Thanks to the continuous action of the yeasts (those brettanomyces are able to continue to find nutrition among sugars ignored by less hardy strains), the beer will continue to get more alcoholic in the bottle. The beer is listed variously at 6.2% to 6.9%, but these are averages. At bottling, it's only 5.2%, but later vintages have been measured at 7.2% and up. The flavor is likewise dependent on the age of the beer. Newer vintages are redolent of the fresh hops; the body is fuller. As the beer ages, it dries and starts to sport the tartness of wild-yeast character. Connoisseurs have settled on ages they like the best. For me, they're all wonderful in their own ways.


Tasting Notes
I have had a couple of Orvals recently.In the picture at right, I'm enjoying a year-plus vintage. By way of comparison, I've also cracked a bottle that had just arrived in stores (though it was already older, at six months, than almost any beer you can buy in the US).

Let's start with the younger bottle. Although it's not obvious from the picture, the beer is a burnt orange color. The head, unlike the whipped cream-like structure of the older bottle, was much softer and denser--snowy. The young version has a quality of youth--it's vibrant and boistrous. The hops really pop, and it has a Northwesty hop signature (no doubt such a beer would be pooh-poohed as inauthentic were it to hail from here). It's one of the more aggressively hoppy Belgians you can find, leaving a resinous, lip-smacking aftertaste. The yeast has not yet achieved the complexity of character it will develop--you get a slightly astringent quality in what is an otherwise fairly wet beer. No great alcohol note--it's quite approachable (though warmth appears, as if by magic, in the belly). The result is something like a cross between a hoppy pale ale and an abbey ale, sort of.

Fast forward another year and the beer is far less hoppy. A lemon zest note is pronounced in both the nose and palate. Hops are evident, but you might miss them because the yeast character is now coming through. The beer is much drier, not quite tart, but in possession of brett-y astringency. It actually tastes old, like you imagine some mythical old amontillado should be. The alcohol is much more obvious; it's hard to believe this is the same beer as the younger version. Although you sacrifice the hops for the older version, you get something more soulful, like an older singer whose range has been replaced by life and character. To me, Orval at any age could be considered a top ten world classic, but I like the elder version: the alcohol and the dryness, they comfort me.

Stats
Malts: pale, caramel
Hops: Styrian Goldings and Hallertau-Hersbrucker
Other ingredients: white candi sugar
ABV: varies, 5.2% - 7.2% (and higher?)
Availability: For one of the world's precious gems, Orval is suprisingly widely available. All beer stores should carry it, and I've seen it in a number of grocery stores.
Rating: A