Bottle @ home. Dark black color, medium sized beige head. Aroma is malts, lightly raisins. Taste malts, a bit stronger raisins now, a tad sweet, dark fruit, (Dutch: zwarte bessen), a bit alcoholic. Decent to medium body and medium carbonation. Decent.

Bottle 330ml. @ home. [ As Het Nest Two Faced Jack ].Clear medium to dark brown colour with a average, frothy to fizzy, fair lacing, mostly diminishing, off-white head. Aroma is moderate to heavy malty, dark malt, light chocolate, moderate to heavy yeasty, belgium yeast, dark fruit, sweet yeast, raisin, brown sugar - candy, dark dried fruit, light alcohol. Flavor is moderate to heavy sweet and light to moderate bitter with a long duration, dark malt, caramel, dried fruit, alcohol, chocolate, sweet yeast, warm spices - herbs, light anis seed. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft, finish feel is light alcoholic. [20180224] 7-3-7-3-15

Susz, cukier, melasa, przyprawy (gozdziki? Pieprz?) banany... dosc lekki w odbiorze, smaczny, ciut syropowy - bdb

Bottle. Cloudy deep brown. Small ivory head. Well-lacing. Aroma: syrup, caramel, toffee, marsh mellow, dried fruit. Average intensity. Medim body. Light sweet taste. Dried pears, prunes, caramel, toffee. Metallic ending.

05/07/2017 @home - 33cl bottle from Bierhalle Deconinck, Vichte. Hazy brown colour with creamy head. Nose is sweet malts, red fruits, caramel. Taste is sweet malts, banana, red fruits, caramel.

Like their Dead Man’s Hand, I apparently missed the basic version of this quadrupel series by the same brewery so this is from an older bottle bought at Fontana in Sint-Niklaas. Regularly shaped, pale greyish beige, moussy, dense head quickly showing gaps in the middle but otherwise well-retaining, over an initially clear, translucent, dark purplish bronze beer with wine red hue, turning darker brown and misty with sediment added. Aroma already shows quite considerable ’rusty’ and chicken broth-like oxidation - I guess this bottle has not been kept in the best of circumstances - initially covering a bouquet of caramel, warm toast, black cherries, brown sugar, cold tea, beef stock, tomato concentrate, candied fig, liquorish, vague hints of honey, bitter orange peel, old dried ginger, leather, iron. Sweet from the start with a lot of ’candi sugariness’, but not too cloying, being balanced by a dim, underlying, basic sourishness; hints of fig, ripe cherry and blue plum with just a dash of banana, some vague blueberry perhaps, followed by a thin, meaty umami touch. Mildly ’stinging’ carbonation, thick and full, slick, bit resiny mouthfeel. Caramelly malt sweetness dominates the middle, made sweeter and honeyish by the residual brown candi sugar; light nutty accent towards the finish, where a very light metallic touch comes in and some spicy phenols rise up retronasally. Drying tail thanks to earthy, leafy but gentle hop bitterness and, unsurprisingly, a lot of rum-like alcohol warming the chest but avoiding astringency even at 10% ABV. Technically correct like all of Nest’s beers - I know I will get a decent, classy Belgian ale each time I buy a bottle from them and this is no exception. A sweet, boozy quad, basically, but a refined one, with enough hops to counter the sweetness, yet only in the very end; shows certain barleywine-like characteristics, perhaps even more so than their new Four Aces Barley Wine, ironically. Only downside to this particular sample is that it has already oxidized after a few years in the shop, and this oxidation is quite obnoxious in the beginning, yet does fade a bit after a while. It does make me doubt if this is suitable for extended cellaring, though. Does also get better and more complex with the barrel age treatment, as the other variants show.