Nicely dry compared to the rest of the tasting. Suiting oxidation & pleasant wine barrel.

Bottle shared by kraddel at RBBWG, cheers! Red wine barrel aged variant of AleSmith Grand Cru, which I remember as a decent Belgian style quadrupel and my first encounter with this brewery thirteen-odd years ago. Thin but moussy, off-white, stable head, hazy copper-tinged bronze colour, warm burgundy. Aroma of black cherries, marzipan, old sweet sherry, ripe blue grapes, dried banana, slight bubblegum, candied fig, ruby port, brown bread, honey, caramel sauce, ginger. Sweet fruity onset, fig, strawberry, banana and pear, medium carbonation, sourish gooseberry touch but residual sugars dominate, though not in a cloying way. Thick, full, fluffy mouthfeel, rich caramelly and bready, slightly nutty malt sweet body, drenched in honeyish, almond- and candied fruit-like sweetness, a bit soapy even; the finish then adds a new chapter to this opulently sweet landscape: subtle woody tannins and the typical ’late’ red wine tartness pop up after the malt, fruit and sugar sweetness have done their work, accentuated by a spicy and earthy hop kiss. Some may find the influence of the wine barrel too subtle here, could indeed do with a bit more dryness and oaky tannins, but apart from that, this is a lush, rich, beautiful quad, adding a layer of complexity to the basic beer. Worthy of the high AleSmith quality standard.