7.5

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7

Obsquur (Ruimtegist's quad) aged on French (!) whisky barrels for seven months; 75 cl crown-capped bottle shared with Bart, Daniel and Martijn on Proevertjesdag. Slight gusher, but nothing to really worry about. Pale greyish-beige, thinnish, opening head on a hazy bronze-brown robe with mahogany hue. Aroma of caramel candy, convincing oaky vanillin, 'kramiek', brown bread, whisky indeed with even a very vague smoky whiff of peat, strawberry jam, barbecue sauce, toffee, prunes, tea, faint note of chocolate somewhere. Sweet onset but nowhere annoyingly sticky, candi sugar touch on notes of fig, pear and dried apple, medium carbonated with smooth body, not entirely 'full' like many other quads perhaps; brown-bready, caramelly, toffeeish core undergoing the tannic wood treatment but fairly softly so, herbal hops piercing through while adding their earthy bitterness (enhanced by a thin toasty side of the malts), all warmed in the end by indeed whisky-flavoured, glowing alcohol, but nothing here becomes very outspoken. I guess this explains the relatively lukewarm response to this beer, which is doomed to be compared with more 'explicit' and idiosyncratic examples of B.A. quads (like the La Trappe Quadrupel Oak Aged series or the Chimay Barriques series), but I personally found this one to be well-crafted and very well balanced, with certain Scotch-like traits and a discreet, yet effective integration of that French whisky into a technically well-executed quad. Quite lovely indeed, for me at least - a slender but entirely correct and entertaining version of a B.A. quad.