UPDATED: DEC 30, 2021 Strong blonde ale aged for no less than fifteen months in a cognac barrel, from this brand in northern France (northeast of Saint-Quentin). Moussy, eggshell-white, small-bubbled, thinnish and dissipating loose head on an initially clear, warm 'old golden' beer with pale bronze-ish tinge from the wood and lively sparkling, turning misty with sediment - but in any case a blonde beer, which technically makes it more of a tripel than a quadrupel for me. Aroma of cooked plum, glazed pear, cognac but also white port and dessert wine, wet wood, stewed red apples, warm pineapple, old moldy orange peel, something sweaty (like sweating abbey cheese), medlar, honey liqueur, clear vanilla-scenting oak wood, ripe cherry touch, fresh paint. Sweet onset, very fruity in a sweet, cooked way: cooked plum and stewed pear, pineapple and medlar with a vague sourish white grape or gooseberry accent below; lively effervescence, full and rounded, soft mouthfeel. Honeyish and cooked yellow fruit sweetness over a pale, thinly bready maltiness with slight caramelly edge but more so from the cognac barrel treatment than from actual malts; clear retronasal 'oaky vanilla', some mild but noticeable tannins and lots of warming cognac, here accentuating the sweetness and fruitiness - so that the end result is again more reminiscent of white port and dessert wine than actual cognac. Very low hop bitterness if any, but the tannins do provide some balance against the sweetness here. The carbonation remains perhaps just a tad too prickly for this style, but what is worse: a blonde ale in Belgian style at this strength is not a quadrupel, but a tripel, at least to me (granted, these things are not set in stone). Point off for tricking me into thinking I was buying a darker beer - but point added again for managing to provide a classy, quite complex sipper, which reminded me of some sweet sparkling wine and white port at times - thereby acting as the perfect 'apéritif'. Feels French and Belgian at the same time. I recommend.