Abbaye d'Orval | Strisselspalt Hop

Orval, a connoisseur’s beer par excellence

Orval is a degustation beer with a nice orange color and an aromatic bouquet.

The gustative sensations will gain in nuance depending on the age of the beer. Young beer is characterized by a bouquet of fresh hops, with a fruity note and pronounced bitterness, light on the palate and a less firm collar than a beer of six months. The latter will feature a bouquet consisting of a blend of fragrances of yeast and old-fashioned hop. The bitterness is more diffuse and the taste has moved to a slight touch of acidity accompanying yeast and caramel flavors.

The brewery indicates the bottling and best-by dates directly on the label. Every consumer can thus easily know the age of an Orval beer, and whether it should be consumed rapidly or less so, depending on whether one likes this beer young, or after a few months or years in the cellar. 

Orval beer is made with water from the Mathilde fountain using pale malt and a small proportion of caramel malt, liquid sugar candy. The traditional English brewing method by infusion is commonly used by Orval to obtain a sweet wort in just a few hours. After filtering, this wort is transferred in the boiling vessel, where it is sterilised and flavoured with hops of German and Slovenian origin. The cooled wort passes through cylindrical/conical fermentation tanks, where pitching yeast is added. 

This gives Orval beer its distinctive, slightly acidulous and so special character. A secondary fermentation in the holding tank gives the beer its incomparable taste, all the more so as fresh whole hops of Alsatian Strisselspalt are added to provide the final touch of the beer: the bouquet.