Tack Alex H.

Bottle. Aroma is roasted malt with notes of Belgian yeast, caramel, dark malt, some chocolate, soft cocoa and candy. Sweet flavour, mild roasty bitter. Medium body. Pleasant Belgian Stout.

Black with thin head. Aroma and flavour have dark chocolate and bitter roasted malts. Earthy coffee and fresh tobacco too.

2 February 2020. At Brugs Bierfestival. Cheers to Anke & Pieter! Cloudy black, lasting, small, foamy, beige head. Aroma of toast, tobacco, fondant, coffee powder, walnut, fig. Taste has sweetish fig, prune & chocolate in a nutty-toasty body, then earthy & raw coffee-like. Dry, earthy hoppy finish, lingering coffee & tobacco & softly sweet nutty maltiness. Medium body, creamy texture, fizzy carbonation. Belgian Stout-ish, I guess? Good.

Fles 33cl thuis. Lichte rooksmaak, koffiedrab, zuurtonen, chocolade, wat citrushop, bitters, vanille ondertoon, droog, roasted malts. (16-11-2019).

33cl bottle: BB 17th May 2022. Poured into a Westmalle chalice at home on 10th May 2019. Black body, tanned blanket on top. Chocolate malts rule the nose and taste, semi-bitter, yet leaning towards a smooth and almost slick liquorice feel. Some ground coffee notes in there too. Nice!

Brugs Bierinstituut’s attempt at black IPA and the follow-up to their better known Witte Zwaan, steinie bottle from De Hopduvel in Ghent. Thick and densely creamy, intricately cobweb-lacing, yellowish beige, stable head over a black beer, revealing its hazy wine red robe only in the end. Aroma of toffee and lots of caramel candy, stewed plums, dried fig, liquorice, orange peel, walnut, tea, coffee grounds, stewing red cabbage, moist clay, banana, white pepper. Sweetish onset with sourish edge, notes of dried plum, raisin and banana with even a light bubblegum touch, softish carb, full and slick body. Very caramelly, bit resinous maltiness with nutty edges, sweetish and bitterish in the end with the sweetness turning a bit – strangely – aspartame-like, while esters linger and a liquorice-like aspect gains considerable strength. The toasty bitterish aspect of the dark malts remains, in all, a tad dull and underexposed, especially since the hoppiness one normally expects to unfold in a BIPA fails to achieve greatness – remaining limited to a rooty, herbal, earthy bitterness which totally lacks the ‘pineyness’ and other New World aromatics, or even the bitterness associated with the style. In fact that liquorice flavour persists in a much stronger way than the hoppiness. Black version of (very) “Belgian IPA” at most, not an unpleasant or unenjoyable beer by any means, just not delivering what it promises, which is still a bit of a shame since I love BIPAs.

Bottle at Huis De Cluuse, Brugge, 20/01/18. Black with a decent beige head. Nose is candied fruit peel, toffee, charr, mellow roast, earthy hops, cocoa powder. Taste comrprises Belgian yeast notes, marshmallow, dusty hops, dried red berries, brown bread, mellow roast. Medium bodied, fine carbonation, drying close peppered with earthy hop bitterness. Passable CDA if a touch on the sweet side and in need of a little more bitterness.