Brune

Bottled@HBF2016. Black colour, small brown head. Aroma is coffee, toffee and some mild fruity notes. Flavour is ripe fruits, toffee, some yeast as well as mild raisins.

Deel Brown body. Lightly brown head. Lightly malty aroma. Moderately bitter, moderately sweet flavour. Nicely warming.

50cl bottle. Brown, thin off white head. Bread, sweetness, distant smoke. Flavor has sweet, bready notes, toffee, candy like. quite tasty, I like the candy notes.

The dubbel in this series, stubby 50 cl bottle (atypical in Belgium, as with their other beers). Medium thick, pale greyish beige, moussy head with good retention on the edges and in ’islands’ of foam in the middle; very dark bronze colour with wine red hue, translucent, hazy. Strong aroma of beef stock cubes, gravy even, apart from caramel candy, coffee grounds, Liège pear syrup, cola (!), quite heavy iron, tea, mushrooms fried with brown sugar, candied fig, hard-boiled egg, raisin, dry tree leaves, banana, soy sauce, venison, nut shells, hint of sherry. Sweet onset, candied cherry and banana, residual brown sugar even on the brink of becoming cloying, but balanced with blackberry sourishness and a light but notably ’beefy’ umami accent; still the brown sugar sweetness does stick to the teeth a bit. Carbonation is on the soft side, not interfering with the ensuing malt core, which is again (caramelly) sweet, turning a bit chocolatey towards the end, a bit nutty too, but without bittering properties. All the while, the banana sweetness and beef stock ’umaminess’ keep lingering; mouthfeel is smooth but fairly thick and syrupy. Some faint ’metallicness’ as well. Finishes with a gentle, aromatic, herbal hop bitterishness, a tad tea-like and floral, adding a slight spicy note to this sweet syrupy whole; some warming, lightly liqueurish alcohol shows up in the end as well. Brown sugar sweetness remains after swallowing. More or less correctly made from a technical point of view, like the other Bertinchamps beers nowadays, and like its brethren, shamelessly adressing worn-out Belgian clichés of banana ester and sugar / syrup sweetness... This could not be more cliché from a conceptual point of view, but then the utterly weird and heavy beef stock and gravy-like aroma, which took me a while to get used to, does make it altogether very different from the industrial dubbel standard (think Leffe Brune or Grimbergen Dubbel). In terms of syrup sweetness, this is so much over the top that it almost becomes a parody of the dubbel style... The meaty aspect may be some happy accident (though I do not immediately see which one), but in any case and considering every aspect of it, I liked it more than I thought I would. Weird though, that is for sure.

Bottle. Nose of brown sugar, some caramel, lots of root beer. Dark brown with orange tints and a lacy head. Sweet, sugary flavor, root beer and brown sugar. A bit syrupy, but ok.

Dark tan to black colored, small non lasting beige head. Aroma is of sweet brown sugar, caramel, bit dried fruits and some roasted malt. Taste is very sweet brown sugar, caramel, dark fruits and light roasted finish but still very sweet. Medium bodied, soft carbonation, sticky. Like all Bertinchamps, way too sweet, sugary and cloying... and basically all of them have the same sugary taste with something different on the side,

Bottle shared by maakun at Ex-ABC. Dark brown, light tan head. Sweet chocolate malts, creamy, chestnuts, herbal, flower petals, parfume. Sweet with moderate bitter. Medium body, slick texture. Light carbonation.

Bottle shared by maakun at Ex-ABC. Dark brown, light tan head. Sweet chocolate malts, creamy, chestnuts, herbal, flower petals, parfume. Sweet with moderate bitter. Medium body, slick texture. Light carbonation --- Beer merged from original tick of Brune on 21 Nov 2017 at 15:48 - Score: 6. Original review text: 3.2

Bottle at THT shared by me. Dark reddish brown with big beige head. Musty apple, lots of herbs and flowers, cloves, allspice, light sour berries, more herbs and spices. Medium sweet, light bitter and sour. Medium bodied with a bit weird mouthfeel, almost puckering. Very herbal stuff.

Bottle sampled at THT. Dark brown with a big tan head. Aroma is quite herbal, perfume, fruity notes and malt. Flavour is above moderate sweet and moderate bitter. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.