Maximo

Bottle from Hopduvel. Brewed at Gaverhopke, so I open it over the sink and indeed it gushes, but manageably so. Deep mocha beige, medium thick, moussy head slowly dissolving in the middle and completely vanishing in the end; jet black colour with mahogany edges, leaving a yellowish ’film’ on the glass afterwards. Strong aroma of chocolate liqueur, charcoal, kahlua, cappuccino, candied cherry, dried banana, strong shoe polish- and even paint-like phenols, cloves, Belgian chocolates, calvados, toffee, liquorice. Intense taste of dense candied sweetness, dates and raisins, deep blackberry sourishness, meaty umami flavours, lightly above average carbonation for the style, very thick and oily, ’fat’ mouthfeel, creamy, consisting of a big caramelly and nutty malt body with bitter chocolate properties and increasing roasted, coffeeish bitterness in the end, while (too) apparent, wodka-like alcohol already manifests itself in an early stage and burns a bit in the end; apart from that, the finish also yields strong glueish phenols and some spicy hops, but the thick, oily malt bittersweetness keeps dominating along with that initial, liqueurish candied sweetness. Quite an intense beer to pour down, not entirely flawless but in this thick a body, the overly strong phenols and very obvious alcohol are covered a bit so the end result is still agreeable. Clearly inspired by Struise’s Black Albert and the like and in that sense a very ’Belgian imperial stout’ if such a thing already exists, but lacks finesse and restraint; still, if you are into imperial stouts, this is an interesting one to try. Given the previous experiences I had with this brewery and especially with beers made at Gaverhopke, this is better than I expected, or in fact probably the best Oude Maalderij beer I had so far.

Bottle from Klaas. Many thanks! Dark brown colour, thin layer of foam. Medium carbonation. Roasted malts, coffee, sour notes. Unbalanced and thin. Not very good.

Beter van tap...

Black with thin head. Strong aroma of burnt malts and treacle. Also quite boozy and grassy. Fairly agressive carbonation is out of place. Burnt and bittersweet flavour. Roasted, boozy and warming.

From tap. Pours hazy dark brown to black with a small tan head. Aroma is roasted malty, chocolate and light alcohol presence. Bitter, dark roasted and breadish. Chocolate malty. Warming and dense dark malty. Dry and roasted finish.

Bouteille 33cl, part of trio set, and wow, not a gusher. However, the three bottles show signs of instability as given by all their overly effervescent profile. So, yeah, cool package but damn work on your quality. Bottled 09/10/2014. Brune foncée presque noire, col moyen café au lait laissant un doré au verre. Arôme est malté, rappelant un peu le sirop pour la toux, avec un côté guimauve et réglisse. On retrouve une levure typique des trois bières, probable signature de Gaverhopke avec un petit rétro-nasal caramélisé. Palais est sec avec encore une fois une effervescence. Alcool réchauffant, malt caramel, crystal avec une pointe sucrée en bouche. Pointe surette avec ce rappel de levure belge. Léger herbacé avec une once de mousse de sous-bois, fini garde des éléments aigres.

Draught on 7th Feb 2015 at The Brugge Beer Festival. Almost black in colour, the head a lasting beige affair. Over roasted maltiness in the nose with some dark chocolate notes. The taste is leaning towards a coffee flavour, again with roasted malts and chocolate in the mix like the aroma. Alcohol almost hidden, good body feel and overall a decent beer.

Bottle @ home. Opaque black color, medium to full sized brown head. Aroma is malts, liquorice. Taste malts, lightly roasty, liquorice, a hint of dark chocolate, moderately bitter. Medium body, decent carbonation.

wbf . pours black, big brown head . Smell is pure , dark malts . Taste is very sweet , full , dark malts ( a shitload ) , bit sharp . Nice ! favourite of the 3 , as to be expected