Some beers are judged on the glass alone, others must be drunk knowing their geography. Triple Moines belongs to the second procession. Brewed at Purnode, in that little Condroz village tucked a few miles from Dinant, it rests on a groundwater aquifer whose purity has made the place famous since eighteen fifty-eight — and on a story of proximity that, in the Meuse valley, is murmured from bar to bar.
I am a beer of the Ardennes and the Meuse. From the roots of my terroir, I draw the tradition of the craftsman and the virtues of nature. — Back label of Triple Moines, historical text.
Purnode, eighteen fifty-eight — the Belot legacy
Brasserie du Bocq was born in 1858 in a farm outbuilding, when Martin Belot — farmer before brewer — decided to put winter months and a discovery to good use: an exceptionally pure groundwater aquifer beneath the Condroz soil. Six generations of Belots followed, making Purnode one of the last independent family breweries left in Wallonia. In 2003, family shareholders having grown too numerous, the Keersmaekers family — owners of the Corsendonk brand — took majority ownership while preserving the plant’s independence. Annual production now exceeds one hundred thousand hectolitres, two-thirds of which is contract brewing for other marques: Corsendonk, La Ramée, Queue de Charrue, and many more.
Seven kilometres from the great sister
This is where geography becomes narrative. Purnode sits seven kilometres as the crow flies from the Notre-Dame de Leffe Abbey, on the same Meuse valley, between Dinant and Yvoir. On that same riverbank and for several centuries, the Premonstratensian canons brewed a beer whose end, at the French Revolution, left oral recipes, memories passed from one cellar to another, and remembrances that appear in no official archive. Bar chatter in the region still murmurs that Triple Moines borrows from that valley memory — a filiation the brewery does not claim but the terroir seems to tell in its stead. Petit Futé, more cautious, writes in black and white that the tripel is an original creation of the house with no documented historical hook. Doctor Beer leaves the reader the choice of story — and notes that the modern version relaunched in November 2024, with its new black label, its golden triangle and its three hooded monks, seems to play knowingly with that iconographic ambiguity.
Visual analysis
A frank golden body, luminous gold, of a clarity surprising for a bottle-refermented beer — the malt proteins have decanted meekly. The head, thick and white on pouring, rises in a generous collar but poorly tenacious: a few minutes of lace before subsiding, a recognised signature of Belgian tripels with lively carbonation. Frankly abundant and steady effervescence sustains a chain of fine bubbles climbing the walls.
The nose
The nose opens frankly malty: fresh cereals, golden bread just out of the oven, with that caramelised trail lining the bottom of the attack. Then come the high-fermentation esters — banana, discreet but present, signature of the yeast strain working at this temperature — accompanied by dried white fruits and a candied-apricot tip the brewery itself claims. A floral breath of noble hops in the background, a trace of forest honey. A generous, frank ensemble, no excess complexity.
The palate
The attack is ample, round, nearly sweet — the promised sweetness settles without heaviness. Medium body pulling toward full, with that malt velvet typical of Walloon tripels. The fruit esters of the nose extend into slivered almonds and white fruits, briefly underlined by a citrus tip. The seven-and-a-half degrees of alcohol are remarkably concealed — never boozy, as the brewery claims. The finish is long, marked by that little touch of bitterness that keeps the pleasure going, in the fine official phrase: a discreet hoppy accent that comes to counter the malt sweetness without ever breaking it.
Doctor Beer’s perfect pairing
The malt roundness and the candied apricot notes point to an obvious partner: duck à l’orange. The beer’s sweetness extends the sauce’s gentle acidity, the banana esters converse with the meat’s fruit, the finishing bitterness cuts the fat. Another path: a baked mont d’or, whose creamy paste wraps the sweetness while its lactic ferments wake up on the biscuit weave. And to stay in Condroz Wallonia, a traditional chicken waterzooï — the cream and the poultry drawn tight by the freshness, the tripel rising as support without smothering the dish.
◆
Fourteen out of twenty for an honest, pleasant tripel without excess — but nourished by a legend the Meuse valley is only too willing to tell. Sometimes, the story is worth the glass.
