beer question ( belgian double)

As I posted before my buddy traded me some of his beer for mine. I just opened one of the Belgian Doubles and it had a very pronounced psssst when I opened it..... I poured it carefully and still had to stop twice due to it almost foaming over the glass. Like 1.5 inches of beer and 5 inches of foam.....the foam is more fizzy than creamy ( if that makes sense) ..the initial taste is pretty good but very thin....it has an after taste that I cannot quite define, but it is alcoholy and zero hop....I have never tasted a Belgian Double before or even seen one to my knowledge....Is this all normal? he asked me to tell him what I thought of the beer and be honest BUT I do not have the knowledge to do so.

You may want to try a new belgium abbey next to it or compare them somehow. There are some other commercial examples listed at the bottom of the BJCP style guidelines here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Belgian_Dubbel
Which will also give you some intellect on the style.
Also, how long has it been bottled? Sounds like the carbonation may not be fully incorporated into solution.

COLObrewer said:

You may want to try a new belgium abbey next to it or compare them somehow. There are some other commercial examples listed at the bottom of the BJCP style guidelines here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Belgian_Dubbel
Which will also give you some intellect on the style.
Also, how long has it been bottled? Sounds like the carbonation may not be fully incorporated into solution.

Click to expand...

cap says 7-22-09 so bottled quite a while...

In that case it may be a tad overcarbonated, not too bad though as long as you can get it in the glass. The only other thing I would say is that it should have a good malty flavor to go along with the alcoholy taste, everything else looks normal for a dubbel. Try another one to see if it's consistent, and also get something from a store or other dubbel homebrewer to compare.

COLObrewer said:

In that case it may be a tad overcarbonated, not too bad though as long as you can get it in the glass. The only other thing I would say is that it should have a good malty flavor to go along with the alcoholy taste, everything else looks normal for a dubbel. Try another one to see if it's consistent, and also get something from a store or other dubbel homebrewer to compare.

Click to expand...

nope, no malty flavor to me at all...more like...heck I cannot explain it. It was like the taste went up into my sinuses like a very mild wasabi....not the taste but the sensation. If I knew exactly what you guys mean by astringent I think this would be it.