Blackwell
Innova Brewery in Haaltert, East Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Stout - Imperial Regular Out of Production|
Score
6.52
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tderoeck (22946) reviewed Blackwell from Innova Brewery 6 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
1/II/20 - 33cl bottle @ nieuwjaarsreceptie Gentse Biervereniging, BB: n/a (2020-89) Thanks to everyone for sharing all today’s beers!
Clear dark brown beer, aery irregular off-white head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: very nice malts, good roast, quite some chocolate, mocha, bit of coffee, some vanilla, grains. MF: soft carbon, medium body. Taste: sourish start, surprisingly some blackberries in the mix, nice roast, some alcohol, chocolate notes. Aftertaste: slightly acidic, soft roast, alcohol, fruity, more of them blackberries.
mike_77 (15880) reviewed Blackwell from Innova Brewery 6 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
Black with no head. Aroma has some sweet caramel notes. Flavour starts grassy, then geys a brown sugat sweetness and finishes with a lot of heavy alcohol warmth.
Alengrin (11675) reviewed Blackwell from Innova Brewery 7 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
The bourbon barrel aged version of Whitney and Innova's fourth beer to date, again from a steinie bottle with glossy label that combines dark letter with a dark background, making it difficult to read for me - so let's get straight to the beer then. Thick and frothy, pale beige, very regular head, hardly lacing and thinning quickly, opening in instants; very dark chocolate brown robe with blackish appearance but still largely translucent especially around the edges, with a glowing ruby red hue, initially as good as clear, misty with sediment. Aroma of a lot of melting Ersatz chocolate, some chocolate milk as well, damp earth and initially even manure, caramel sauce, raisin bread, red apple, banana and even light bubblegum, cane sugar, treacle, wet wooden barrel indeed but not overly prominent (could be more outspoken and more colourful), sweet and boozy bourbon but again not as outspoken and clear as in most other modern BBA beers, hazelnut liqueur, background accents of wet clay, cloves, liquorish, 'Haagse hopjes' or coffee cream, roses. Sweet onset, lots of residual dark sugars, banana ester with light bubblegum effect, hints of candied fig, ripe pear and blue plum, light sourish undertone, medium carbonation. Full, rounded, very slick mouthfeel, yet not as oily as it ought to be, very caramelly and lightly sweet-chocolatey middle, lingering bubblegum note, remaining very sweet with a hazelnutty side. Light underlying sourishness continues well into the finish but so does the residual sweetness, with roasted bitterness lacking too much to qualify as a stout - as is, evidently, the case in the basic Whitney beer as well. Alcohol becomes very prominent in the final stage, heating but not explicitly bourbon-coloured, with a light tannic woody effect as well, but again remaining very restrained. The overall sugary sweetness wins, with only a 'deep', brief and earthy hop bitterish touch in the end, insufficient to balance this sweetness; very bready and lightly phenolic yeast effects are clear enough as well. The sugary sweetness sticks to the teeth long after swallowing (not unlike e.g. Kasteelbier or something alike). Since this is Whitney with a bourbon barrel as the extra ingredient, it is self-evident that this one too lacks roasted bitterness and 'cleanness' to qualify as a stout of any kind - like Whitney, this is much closer to an old school Scotch, with the barrel effect remaining too subtle to truly change the beer for the better (ignoring the fact that putting a mediocre beer in a wooden barrel does not make it better by definition either, of course). Not a bad beer per se, a (very) sweet and warming sipper, just not the kind of beverage I expect when I think of 'bourbon barrel aged imperial stout'. Too many of these new self-proclaimed craft brewers in Belgium are trying to be hip without understanding the ins and outs of IPA, stout and other non-native styles, I'm afraid.
nathanvc (7053) reviewed Blackwell from Innova Brewery 7 years ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 6
24 February 2019. Wieze Bierfestival - cheers to Meeki, Ama Deke & the lovely Anke! Hazy dark brown with a quickly thinning, off-white head. Aroma of industrial butterscotch, candied banana, Coca-Cola, cookie dough, licorice, faint vanilla, alcohol. Taste is medium sugary sweet, notes of caramel, dough, licorice & some plastic, leading to a medium herbal bitter core with tea, spices, wood and early (wry) alcohol peeping through. Dryish, malty finish, vague herbal hops, more caramel, candy & rather wry brown rum-like alcohol. Light to medium body, syrupy texture, soft carbonation. I think a lot went wrong with both this Blackwell and the base Whitney beer. What's up with the overly sweet character, the light body at that ABV, and especially the lack of roasted bitterness? I hope other raters with more technical knowledge can shed light on this great mystery... On a sidenote, I don't think MaltMuse119 is a bonafide rater, that much is clear.