Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5

Trocken röstiger, mild herber Beginn. Dezent nach Kaffee, schwacher Hintergrund, wenig getreidig. Okay-ish. 9/10/8/8/5/8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

Sample at Zythos 2022, black beer, small head. Aroma is malt, roast, coffee. Taste is the same, bitter, dry, roast, coffee, very nice.

Decent

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

Bottle shared with Dutchdrebus. Dark brown to black color, decent sized light brown color. Smell and taste malts, a bit roasty, brown malts, metallic a bit, iron, a bit bitter. Hmm not great. 6-3-7-3-12

Dit bier heet Stoute René, niet René Stout. Get your act together Untappd. Pumpkin ale met ijzer en drop.

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle @ home. Dark brown/black colour, creamy brown foam. Nose of coffee, roasted malts. Taste is roasty, notes of coffee, light sweet .Well balanced. Nice beer!

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Bottle from Delhaize in Dok Noord, Ghent. Pours cloudy black (actually dark brown) with a big, frothy, dark beige head; slowly thinning; little lacing. Aroma of burnt caramel, brown rum, salted peanut, clove, licorice, cinnamon, prune & raisin, coffee pad, candied (dark) fruit & banana. Taste is light to medium malty sweet, quite caramelly, prune & raisin next to a (pea)nutty edge; light roasted bitterness - rather restrained - has 'generic' coffee pad & toasted bread before the spices pop up (clove, nutmeg, coriander perhaps); in the back, there's a weird, sourish, wheaty & soapy effect. Dryish, herbal hoppy finish, toasty with a note of coffee pad again, faint ash, lingering spices, to top it off some warming & not so elegant brown rum alcohol. Medium body, slick/oily texture, lively carbonation. Weird brew overall, not necessarily bad, yet falling victim to Belgian clichés again, trying so hard but failing.

Walgelijk.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 3.5

Imported from my RateBeer account as Stoute René (by René):
Aroma: 3/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 7/20, MyTotalScore: 2.2/5

11/V/18 - 33cl bottle from a trade, shared with Brambo @ home - BB: VI/2019 (2018-699) Thanks to Alengrin for the trade (I think?)!

Clear dark brown to black beer, big creamy fluffy beige head, bit adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: very yeasty, dirty, rotten banana, smells really really bad and unpleasant, chemical, nail polish remover. MF: very lively carbon, medium body. Taste: very roasted, bit watery, malty, some banana, bitter touch, caramel. Aftertaste: very roasted, coffee, yeast, bitter hops, very chemical, nail polish again, pretty bad. Something went very bad when brewing this beer. Or probably (likely) while fermenting, I'd guess it has to do with the yeast and (bottle) fermenting temperatures...

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Brand new addition to this commissioned René range, the second one to my knowledge, after that blonde, correctly made but overspiced blonde one; steini bottle from the Prik & Tik in Zele. Irregularly 'papery' lacing, medium thick, creamy, pale grey-tinged beige head slowly showing gaps here and there over a black beer with hazy mahogany brown edges (when held under bright light). Aroma of old brownies, black coffee grounds, juniper berries, star aniseed, coriander, Norwegian spice cookies, dried blackcurrant, pear syrup, hard butterscotch candy, cloves, licorice candy and effective 'drop', dry clay, nutmeg, baker's yeast, banana, old 'jenever', vague hint of damp forest floor and eventually (i.e. with sediment) even 'fresh' manure in the background. Restrainedly sweetish onset, dried prunes and dried figs, some banana ester (isoamylacetate) with a sourish undercurrent of roasted barley, bringing some early bitterness as well; spritzy, minerally carbonation, a bit too much for a 7% ABV stout, coarsening an otherwise smooth, full but not very 'oily' mouthfeel. Toasted-nutty malt body with slight metallic edges, bittersweet with more emphasis on a soft, mellow bitterness than on actual sweetness, limited in residual sugariness but still maintaining a basic amount of (caramelly) sweetness till the end; meanwhile phenolic (clove- and licorice-like) spiciness builds and builds, eventually reinforced by actual ethereal, bit soapy, juniper berry- and coriander seed-like spiciness which fills the nose cavity retronasally, like an old school Belgian Christmas ale. Vaguely coffeeish roasted bitterness is present too, in a drying, slightly astringent way. The wry-and-sweet spiciness, along with toasty malt bitter(sweet)ness and (way too) strong phenolic effects, lingers over a warming, rum-like, rather wry finish with a dash of earthy, leafy hop bitterness to it as well, sticking to the root of the tongue a bit, in about equal force as the roasted bitterness. Well-intended like so many of these new generation Belgian stouts, but as is so often the case in this segment, losing itself too much in Belgian yeast effects, much too phenolic and earthy with a not very flattering damp earth-like 'mustiness' to it. Needs more boldness and oiliness - even if you insist to keep using a 'Belgian' degree of actual spiciness, which is way over the top and rather ill-placed here, as is the case in the blonde René. Don't get me wrong: spices can work out well in a heavy stout (see Perennial's Abraxas, to name one masterpiece of international standard), but I am really not convinced coriander is the right one to use - even if the label, sadly, refuses to mention the spices that actually went in here, mindful as it is of old Belgian family brewer traditions. Since this is not explicitly advertized as a spiced stout, I think the commissioner simply thought adding spicing was a good idea... All things considered: classic Belgian dubbel, too earthy and yeasty for its own good even if it were intended as a dubbel, but with 'blackness' added to be able to pretend it's a stout. Should have called it stout-ish then, like Arogante did with its second creation, but this will work fine on a regional level among consumers who never even came close to tasting a 'serious' Anglo-Saxon stout of high quality. Enjoyable as such, just do not get too excited. That said: the fact that the first rater here below seems very enthusiastic about this beer whilst having but one single rating, makes me suspect that he is in fact the commissioner; I do not have a habit of (indirectly) communicating with other raters in my beer ratings, but in this case this makes me all the more suspicious - and austere as a result. Moreover, it seems his two current beers are sufficient to acknowledge "René" as a brewery here - aber in der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister!