Baby Jesus
(has 1 batch)

Imported from untappd on 02-05-2020

Pours very dark brown, not much foam. Smell is coffee, liquorice. Taste is full, coffee, medium bitter, liquorice, medium body, high carbo. Mild alcoholic finish. Rather dry, mild dark chocolate.

Verzet's latest creation to date, an imperial porter flavoured with cherries and coffee - I have been looking forward to this one for a few weeks now. Quite thick and frothy, very mousy, lightly lacing, uneven-bubbled yet proportionally stable, yellowish beige, slowly dissipating and eventually wafer-thin head on a black beer with hazy ruddy-brown edges. Aroma of walnuts, strong coffee grounds and used coffee filters, brown bread crust, sweet black cherries indeed, ripe blackberries, roasted chicory, sawdust, strong and very clove-like phenols, plum wine, ripe pear, dead tree leaves, toffee, tea bags, baker's yeast, sherry, hints of damp earth, varnish, nutmeg, cassis, old liquorish candy and something very vaguely animalistic (horse). Very fruity onset, from the beer's natural yeasty esters (blue plum, blackberries, pineapple even) but more so from added sweet cherries, over a mildly sourish undertone; medium carb adding some faint mineral effects, full and slightly astringent mouthfeel. Walnutty and caramelly malt body with brown bread crust edges, bittersweet, with the fruitiness dancing on top along with spicy phenolic notes and plunging into an earthy, softly roasty finish with coffee grounds providing some retronasal aroma and dim but clear sourishness (as in old coffee indeed) and hops providing a leafy bitterishness. The alcohol, rum- and sherry-like in flavour, adds considerable warmth and spiciness, but even at this strength manages to avoid overt wryness, so that malty breadiness, yeasty spiciness and remainders of both the bittering coffee and sweetening cherries remain upright. Yeasty and earthy and in that sense very 'Belgian', but at the same time complex and rich, this is one other fine Verzet brew; the coffee could have been a bit more fragrant for me, but the cherries are applied very cleverly and elegantly, adding sweetness and fruitiness without descending into either unpleasant dirty sourness or simplistic candied sweetness, as is so often the case in fruit stouts (or porters in this case). Very mature, intelligent and alluring brew, though it does not quite reach the stunning quality level and refinement I found in their Porters Atlanta Provision last year, which is a bit what I was hoping for, to be frank. Still, this Baby Jesus once again proves that the Verzet crew is a force to be reckoned with - a brewery that manages to shake the old Belgian establishment with their youthful drive and unbridled passion for innovation and complexity. I remain a fan.