Bottle from Geers. Dark brown colour, thin layer of beige foam. Very complex nose. Lots of oak, vanilla, sherry and bourbon. Caramel, brown sugar, some spices. Rather sweet. A really nice dessert sipper.

Ambitious sipping beer by this brewery in Sinaai, in my home Waasland region, tasted from tap at Modeste in Antwerp. Thick and very dense, frothy, pale beige head over a very dark chocolate brown, almost blackish beer only revealing its chestnut brown robe at its edges. Intense bouquet of chocolate liqueur, bourbon, caramel sauce, walnut oil, Tia Maria liqueur, pipe tobacco, glue, dried blackberries, dry earth, banana mush, wet wood, sherry. Candied sweet onset, baked banana, very subtle but interesting sourish and beef stock-like umami accents, medium carbo, thick and slick, somewhat oily mouthfeel. Big chocolatey, toffeeish and hazelnutty, clean malt body, thick and heavy, sweet with growing soaked woody accents in the finish as well as a bittering toasted aspect and the promised bourbon and sherry flavours, long and heating without becoming too astringent, adorned with spicy hop notes; varnish-like solvents as well. Caramelly malt sweetness remains but quite remarkably, Belgian yeastiness remains well at bay. This region is not renowned for many great beers, sadly, but this one really stunned me: it almost seems as if it were made by some foreign craft brewery, nothing here reminds me of Donum Ignis' other beers. Since it was served unreasonably cold at the Modeste festival, where the organisation apparently still thinks that recommended serving temperatures for bland industrial lagers apply to just any beer style, I needed to revisit this and got the chance at Stefan's Single Trip Tasting, where it was served from a 75 cl bottle; still impressive, though seemingly more syrupy, sweeter and more umami-forward than the tap version at Modeste, with more beef stock-like aspects to it. Nice to see a dark barleywine, because that was apparently intention here, appears not just within the revived Belgian beer scene, but even so close to my home village - if you'd ask me to name another specifically dark barleywine made in Belgium, I don't think I would be able to readily come up with one...