Donker roodbruin bier met mooie schuimkraag. Smaak is licht bitter met een klein zuurtje en iets van chocolade, wat koffie, melk en donker fruit. Niet onaardig moet ik zeggen.

Fles gedeeld door Benzai, geprobeerd met LiekevdV en Keukeman. Het is een donkerbruin bier met een beige schuim. Het heeft een aroma van koffie en hop. De smaak is wat zurig, koffie, chocolade en hop.

Bottle at birthday shared. Brown color, virtually no head. Smell and taste malts, roasty a bit, while wheat bread. Meh. Not too good.

33cl bottle at Station 1280. A clear dark reddish brown beer with a beige lacing. Aroma of brett, dark malt, some cherries. Taste of tart cherries, brett, dark malt, coffee.

2019

A weird creation by larger Antwerp's CyDraLe, describing itself as, wait for it: kefir-soured imperial black oatmeal cherry milkshake farmhouse session IPA brought to life from the remainders of Samhain Russian imperial oatmeal stout... I guess this can be read as a not too serious attempt to mock the hybridisation and over-specification of beer styles in the craft beer world, but with this kind of absurd descriptions, no consumer has any clue as to what he can expect, obviously - a first point of criticism for me. How am I supposed to take your beer seriously if you present it like this? Anyway, if the overly elaborate description is to be taken seriously in any way, I assume this concoction is a hodgepodge of leftovers from very different, earlier beers, with some added handling (like the addition of lactose). Very loose, even-bubbled, pale yellowish beige 'head' fizzing away into absolutely nothing as quickly as the 'head' on a glass of coke (i.e. in a second or two, max) - and with the actual beer looking very dark, a kind of blackish mahogany brown with bronze, hazy edges and visible bubbles of sparkling all around, the overall effect indeed looks exactly like cola. The aroma is - unsurprisingly - a mishmash of all kinds of impressions that do not all seem related to one another: I get black cherry juice, cola, burnt toast, damp earth, raisin bread, tea, nutmeg, cloves, bayleaf, liquorice candy, hard caramel, earthy beetroot, dried prunes, old dusty jute bags, elderberries, noticeable lactose. Crisp, fruity-estery onset, pear, elderberries, blackberries, blue plums and indeed a touch of black cherry - sweetish, but with a sourish edge, fizzily carbonated (again: like cola); medium bodied, soft and a bit 'fluffy'. Brown-bready and somewhat peanutty maltiness with strong caramelly core, but also developing a roasty-bitter edge towards the end; this sourish streak (I guess representing the kefir?) continues, matching with dark berry-like fruitiness and juiciness. Lots of bready yeastiness in the tail, a tad starchy, with phenolic spicy notes and lingering dark juicy fruitiness; the roasted effect becomes earthy and a tad ashy in the end, but provides welcoming bitterness against a very slightly sticky lactose sweetness, further adorned with a herbal hop bitterish note. An unorganized hotchpotch of styles mixed together like a cocktail, indeed, but the end result of this idea is not a NEIPA like the label claims. If anything, it has features of porter, dark sour and just simply Belgian dark ale, but given that roasty effect, I think the general 'porter' flag can cover it (more or less). Points off for knowingly being an ill-fated idea, for losing the head in the blink of an eye and for carelessly throwing together a bunch of leftovers that simply do not match - but then, not as bad as I was fearing, with still some redeeming features; I can, for instance, appreciate the combination of sour (cherry?) juiciness and tartness with the roasted porter aspect. In any case, most of the words in that ridiculously complicated description can easily be deleted...

Dark brown-ish beer; cream head gone in seconds. Rainwater; very, very faint roast... and that's it. Roast, sweetish-fruity as rosehips. Lactose is traceable, kefir less obvious, unless for the slight acidity. LIght, well-carbonated, slick. Nose is absent, rest is not bad, but hardly exciting. I'll go to the witches next time.