Quadrupel Quercus Eikenvat Gelagerd Batch #2
La Trappe Trappist - Abdij O.L.V. Koningshoeven in Berkel-Enschot, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands 🇳🇱
Belgian Style - Quadrupel / Dark Strong Special Out of Production|
Score
7.88
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Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 9
Tap at Kulminator. Oaky, estery nose, chocolate, caramel, raisins, banana, coconut. Dark brown, super cloudy, with lace. Huge coconut falvor, vanilla, toffee, treacle. Very rich and aromatic, and sweet. Perfectly smooth, with low carbonation. Much better than the batch 13 I had last night in the bottle.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Clear dark reddish brown colour, firm cream head. Sweet malty aroma, raisins, banana, white wine and grapes. Quite fruity. Sweet malty flavour, vanilla, dark fruits. Light astringent. Finish wood, vanilla, raisins and dates. Nice!
Not sure wether this is the right place for me to put this beer, could also be batch #1. They said it was batch 7 when I asked, but judging from previous ratings they called this batch 7 way before the Quadrupel Oak Aged Batch #7 came out - and besides, this one for sure isn’t peated. I do get white wine, which is in the description of this beer.
As far as I understood, these Quercus casks are the first experiment of La Trappe with oak aging, sort of a precursor to the Oak Aged series, and Dirk bought all of them. Or so the story goes. Which batch is which is impossible to tell as far as I can see, and I got different advice on where to rate this.
(Draught @ Kulminator, RBESG 2013 Antwerp pub crawl)
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9
Tap @ Kulminator, RBESG. Ruby red - purple-ish colour, off-white head. Nose is malty, sweet, slightly fruity, candy sugar. Flavour is malty, candy sugar, furity, slightly spicy. Well balanced, lots of things going on. Very drinkable.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Tap @ Kulminator. Although I usually think Benzai just talks a load of #%(&, he might have a point this time about the confusingly named Quercus. Anyway, the beer itself is a lovely mix of white wine with the typical Quadrupel and as it’s from tap, the carbonation makes it very soft.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
From tap @ Kulminator, Antwerp. Normally I would write a decent review of what I taste but in this case I’m just typing away nonsense. I highly doubt whether the separate entry for this beer is correct. It’s weird enough that this is the only place where they have Oak Aged Quadruples on tap, but it’s even weirder that this is the only place where you can get the two batches of Quercus oak aged. Looking at the list they call all oak aged batches "Quercus", so I’m guessing it’s never been a unique batch but it’s just another name for the same beer. But which one? Well I’m guessing it’s just batch #1 and #2 that at some point were wrongfully added because of the, understandably confusing, different name. So what’s the right thing to do here? In my opinion the two Quercus beers in the database should be aliased. Better even, they should become unrateable since Kulminator is the only pub calling these beers Quercus, but nobody seems to know which batch is which and there’s really no way to determine yourself. The table I sat down at said it was Batch #7 (which is not even remotely true since that was the peated version) while at the bar it said it was batch #2. So in my opinion: make them unrateable. Even at La Trappe (De Koningshoeven) they don’t know these batches, so I guess that says enough.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 8.5
Imported from my RateBeer account as La Trappe Quadrupel Quercus Eikenvat gelagerd Batch #2 (by Bierbrouwerij de Koningshoeven - La Trappe Trappist):
Aroma: 8/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 9/10, Palate: 5/5, Overall: 17/20, MyTotalScore: 4.3/5
6/XI/12 - on tap @ Kulminator (Antwerpen) - BB: n/a (2012-1251)
Little cloudy red brown beer, big creamy beige head, pretty stable, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: caramel, dried fruits, malts, sweet undertone, brown sugar, bit yeasty. MF: ok carbon, full body. Taste: sweet malty start, caramel, raisins, some vanilla, dried fruits. Aftertaste: little bitter, some chocolate, lots of dried fruits, caramel, some vanilla, sweet syrupy ending. Man, this is my kind of beer, totally!
Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 10 | Flavor - 10 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9
Several times draft @ Kulminator // this stuff just keeps getting finer, wonder how it will taste in 5 years // they bough enough of this stuff (all existing kegs) to last them 5 years at the current pace // light brown apricots, interesting looking beer, small off-white head, they always fill this to the brim but I do often ask for a 15 cl. glass // smell is pure sweet goodness, caramelized fruit, caramel, lots of toffee, caramelized apples, soft ripe prunes, candy sugar, wood & some booze, thick, rich // taste lots of caramelized malts, caramel, toffee, ripe prunes & figs, candy sugar, chewing gum, banana yeast, wood, touch wine in the back, unfortunately a bit too much alcohol in here // velvety & smooth // beats the other version that I have tried, mighty fine stuff /// been drinking a lot of this one, upped the score from 4.1 to 4.4 /// upped to 4.7 since I keep drinking & loving this one
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
Draught Very small, beige head, irregular, leaving spots of lace over amber beer. Very sweet smalling, vanilla(sauce) nose, peach- or passionfruit yoghurt, bananaester. Wood, vanilla, but starting extremely sweet; bittering to wood afterwards, and some madeirisation touches. More bananaester, especially in the finish. Very slick, alcoholburn, oily. Certainly not my favourite batch. One for the sweet teeth.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
From tap at Kulminator as Quercus. Pours hazy dark orange with a small, tan and creamy head. Aroma is caramelish, light roasted and breadish. Light sweetness, roasted malty, breadish and slight wooden. Medium dry malty and slight fruity into a mellow dry finish.