When I turned a couple of years back, some of my friends got me beer, one in particular, who knows nothing about beer gave me a six pack of Victories Golden Monkey.  I was skeptical about this tripel, but I will try almost any beer so I put in the fridge and then tried one.

After I let it chill a bit, I opened it up and poured it, nothing really of note, it poured an amber color with a subdued white head. I lifted the glass and took a sniff.  Immediately I was hit with a barrage of smells, this is a heavily spiced beer, which made me worry a bit.  More specifically I smelled, cloves, banana and a splash of lemon.  It was an interesting, intense and a pleasant smell all at once. Next I took a sip.  I was very shocked and impressed at the fact that I ended up liking it as much as I did.  All those flavors managed to mix together into a rather smooth beer.  The taste of the spices, cloves, banana and who knows what else made for a fresh refreshing taste.  The biggest shock, is that this brew is 9.5% ABV and I didn’t taste it at all.  In fact my buddy and I had this on draft at a bar near Wrigley and even he was surprised by the lack of alcohol taste.

Overall I ended up really liking this beer, I mean far more than I would’ve thought and I’ve bought it many times since then, so give this funky monkey a try! 4 out of 5 kegs.