Sampled @ Zythos Bier Festival 2017. Fast klare orange braune Farbe. Geruch nach reifen roten Früchten, Zimt, Lakritze. Geschmack ist würzig karamellig malzig, Medizin, Zimt, Lakritze.

At Zythos 2017. Pours almost black. Aroma is malty nuts and caramel, not inspiring. Body is medium, sweet, sugar, candy, low but lively carbonation. Palate is slightly sweet but rather short. Okay, nothing special.

Spiced quadrupel from this new micro brewery near Kortrijk, cheers Gino and Kurt! Medium thick, moussy, fizzing and relatively quickly opening, pale greyish beige head over a hazy, dark but translucently purplish mahogany brown beer. Aroma of stewed plum, candied dates, brown rum, sweetbread, banana, minerals, ginger, damp leaves, melting brown sugar, cumin seed, (white?) cardemom and aniseed fainter but still noticeable, red bell peppers and even a weird impression of spicy barbecue sausages, old dry cloth, cooked carrots, butterscotch candy, rainwater, some fusel alcohol and, alas, unmistakable and again quite obnoxious DMS. Fruity onset, moderately estery, banana and even some bubblegum, dates, sweet ripe nectarine and pear, sourish undercurrent, bit blackcurrant-like, minerally carbonation numbing the sides of the tongue a bit and adding a vague sourish effect, rounded, bit ’fluffy’ and somewhat resinous mouthfeel, full and supple. A burning sensation of chili peppers becomes quite obvious from the middle onwards and heats the back, but does not numb or overpower too much. Bready, caramelly and slightly nutty malt body, a bit thinner than expected based on the ABV. Earthy yeastiness, phenols, leafy hop bitterishness and warming, rum-like alcohol join in the finish, the bitterness being reinforced by not just hops and alcohol but also the spice effects (cardemom becoming more obvious at this point as well as some of the cumin, but the aniseed remains much more hidden). Sweet maltiness spiced up by the chili heat is the last impression, and a quite pleasant one. I like the idea of heating up the normally sweet and fruity, ’brown sugary’ quad with chili peppers, but it takes an appreciation of (and resistance to) capsaicin to like this, as in the thinner malt environment of a quad in comparison with an imperial stout, they do become quite obvious and burning in the end. The other spices are unnecessary to me but in any case, this beer is technically a bit better executed than the other beers I had from them so far, and conceptually a Belgian classic with a modern twist; this is an interesting addition to the Belgian beer landscape. Have an extra point for that.