330 ml. bottle @ Beerlovers Bar. BBF 09-10-2019. Red amber, bubbles, sparkling, tanned head. Nose is metallic mix of sweet & sour, Oud Bruin, candy, bit more sweet. Bit too metallic, oxidized, stale, old wood, sour metallic, sweet & sour, sour with candy, low bread. Body is iron, malt. Nice very old school old bruin, bit too metallic but not clear what differentiates this from existing Verhaeghe products which is a shame.

It is only on rare occasions that a brewery takes on a beer style as difficult and time-consuming to master as Flemish red, so this one immediately drew my attention; named after the original Zulte, which was taken over by Alken-Maes in 1988 and discontinued in 2007, I guess this brewer has been clever enough to recognise that this beer was still in (I guess mostly older) people's memories and decided to wake it from the dead in his own way... Medium thick, pale yellowish beige, regular head, settling as a moussy ring and a flat island of foam in the middle, over a cristal clear, deep burgundy bronze robe with vermillion hue. Aroma of sugared blueberry yoghurt, medlar, Paschka cheese and chocolate spread, butterscotch, stewed red apple, balsamic vinegar heavily softened by brown sugar, passion fruit jam, fresh oak wood, pork chops with honey sauce, peanut butter, but also freshly ironed cloth somewhere (pasteurisation?). Mildly estery onset, medlar, fig and pear sweetness with an equally strong blackberry and passionfruit sourness positioned next to it, in a rather sharply carbonated environment (a tad too sharp and minerally for the style, really); caramelly malt sweet middle under a drying, very yoghurty lactic effect, tart and drying but still remaining soft and sweet, even a bit buttery. Some subtle and well-placed woody notes in the finish, where the sourness from the onset seems to become a bit more outspoken, moving more towards sour grapes and redcurrant - but all the time, the underlying brown sugary and caramelly sweetness keeps providing balance. A brief, earthy hop bitter note pops up in the end but, as it should in this style, fades again quickly. There seems to be some diacetyl left in this one, but otherwise, the balance of flavours is quite right, with enough rounded sweetness to balance the sourness - too many new (especially foreign) 'oud bruin' beers tilt way too much towards sourness, whereas this style, at least traditionally, needs sweetness as well, like a sweet and sour Asian dish, so to speak. Yet, even with this basic mastery of the sweet and sour balance, this is filtered, pasteurised and rather simplistic within its specific context - far from the most complex 'oud bruin' around, in other words, but clearly leaning towards a classic Rodenbach-, Bacchus- or Duchesse-like flavour profile and in any case incomparably better than what Alken-Maes made of the brand (their version, may it rest in peace, was a simple brown beer, probably even bottom-fermented, with added industrial lactic acid - that says it all, I think). Good start, now let's hope they come up with more ambitious elaborations on the theme, like the Rodenbach Vintages or fruited versions.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Zulte RoodBruin (by Alfred):
Aroma: 8/10, Appearance: 3/5, Taste: 8/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 15/20, MyTotalScore: 3.7/5

21/XI/17 - 33cl bottle @ Horeca Expo (Ghent) - BB: 9/X/19 (2017-1920) Thanks to the brewers for today's samples and my Ghent beer posse for sharing the glasses and keeping my liver sane. :p

Clear red brown beer, creamy irregular beige head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: pretty fruity, bit acidic, caramel, dried fruits, some red fruits. MF: very lively carbon, medium to light body. Taste: lots of sweet red fruits, strawberry candy, soft acidity, some citric acid, bitter touch. Aftertaste: very fruity, bit acidic, vinegar touch, red fruit, sour cherries, little bitter, bitter touch, nice fruitiness.