Clear dark reddish brown beer with a big beige head. Aroma of moderate roasted dark malt, some coffee and dark fruits. Taste of tobacco, roasted dark malt, liquorice, dark fruits.

Bottle. Dark brown color. Roast, milk chocolate in the aroma and Flavor, caramel. Hazelnut. Sweet, sticky, raisin, some roastbitterness in the finish. Could have some more body.

Strong stout flavoured with 'drop' (liquorice candy, not the first one to use this ingredient even in Belgium), by this brewery near Bruges. Gusher, but can be opened without loss if done very carefully (and over the sink just to make sure). Very thick and foamy, thickly paper-lacing, large-bubbled but dense and firm, pale greyish-ecru head on a dark chestnut brown beer with hazy wine red hue - not the kind of opaque black one expects from a stout of this strength, though. Aroma of old caramel candy, vegetable soup and vegetable 'bouillon', cooked salsify and even overcooked broccoli (DMS and a lot of it!), damp earth, old liquorice indeed, ground walnuts, dried prunes, soggy toast, cloves, dried tarragon, coffee filters that have been used repeatedly, hints of iron (in a natural way), bayleaf, brown soap, old brown bread, whisky, frying tomato concentrate, some faint wood glue-like solvents, chewing gum somewhere but very faintly so. Estery onset, restrained in sweetness but still hinting at baked banana, dried fig and apple peel, very fizzy carbonation (filling the mouth - yet not too painfully stinging), light umami accent (beef jerky), sourish undertone; full, fluffy mouthfeel coarsened a bit by the overcarbonation. Brown-bready, toasty and doughy malts with a caramelly edge, dryish with a sweetish core, bitterish in the end but rather softly so and lacking in the expressive 'black' chocolate and coffee aspects inherent to stouts in general; meanwhile lots of fruity and spicy yeasty aspects dance around aimlessly, with strong clove- and somewhat thyme-like impressions. Ends yeasty, bready and 'rounded' bitter, the latter both from malts and from - herbal and leafy - hops, accentuated by a 'jenever'-coloured alcohol glow; the liquorice is certainly there, but fortunately does not overpower too much. Many attempts at the old but revived and still very prestigious 'imperial stout' genre have been made in Belgium since Regenboog, Alvinne and Struise introduced it here, but many have failed, in remaining basically Belgian style beers (often quadrupels) with an above average toasted bitterness; this one fits that category perfectly, with the additional comment that it has turned out much too yeasty, with unpleasant cooked vegetable notes (DMS - which I hate with a passion) taking over in the nose and being overcarbonated. Technically flawed (something I do not tend to expect from Bryggja), way too Belgian-yeasty for the intended style and lacking significantly in roastedness, this is again more Scotch-like than imperial stout-like, and not even the most pleasant one in that respect. Needs to be rethought and reinvented completely - and please omit that annyoing liquorice nobody is waiting for, I would almost say I'd have preferred coriander seed instead... Almost.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Bryggja Aristide (by Bryggja):
Aroma: 5/10, Appearance: 3/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 10/20, MyTotalScore: 2.6/5

2/II/19 - 33cl bottle @ Brugs Bierfestival, BB: n/a - (2019-150) Thanks to the Belgian ratebeer crew for sharing todays' beers!
Clear dark brown beer, creamy irregular beige head, pretty stable, non adhesive. Aroma: Very unpleasant, smells dirty, yeasty, autolyse?, something rotten. Gets better when left to stand for a while, getting more spices, liquorish, dried fruits, caramel, soft roast. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: soft roast up front, weird soapy flavour, more roast, grains, cow fodder, pretty bitter. Aftertaste: bit soapy, metallic, unpleasant, ver roasted, bit chemical, very bitter and dry finish.