Les Trois Mousquetaires Grand Cuvée Weizenbock Dark Wheat Ale with Dan, Ryan & Goran

Christmas beer number one, thanks Jono!

This is Quebec’s Les Trois Mousequetaires‘ Grand Cuvée Weizenbock Dark Wheat Ale, which is a lot of words, but it’s a big sweet beer so that’s okay.  If you click that link you’ll see there’s not much to say about LTM’s web presence – it’s a redirect to their Facebook page. There’s links to some articles and reviews, as well as testimonial stuff.

Right, so what do all those words mean? Good question, says me… to myself. Uh oh. Grand Cuvée is French for grand blend, because English is exactly half French. I’m not sure if they are referring to a blend of wheat, or of dark ales, or if it’s a hat-tip to the term grand cru, a Belgian term signifying complexity of beer.

Okay, what’s a Weizenbock? This is now German, and it means wheat bock, specifying the grain and style of beer. A bock is a “dark, malty, lightly hopped ale” of German origin. A wheat beer will still have malted barley as part of the wort.

So, if you translate the whole thing directly into English, the name of this beer is “Grand Blend Wheat Dark Ale Dark Wheat Ale”. Anyway, aside from being a pedant with transliteration, here’s what we thought:

smell
Dan – cranberry, raspberry, metallic
Simon – soft fruits
Ryan – Welch’s grape juice
Goran – sourdough bread, apricot

taste
Dan – very good, syrupy, sweet cranberry, dries out, ends with copper
Simon – velvety smooth, fresh fruit, grapes
Ryan – strong, thick, sweet
Goran – date, very sweet

Les Trois Mousquetaires Grand Cuvée Weizenbock Dark Wheat Ale – 10.5% 750ml – $9.10 – Québec

Try it? Yes. Buy it? For sharing.