Waardamse Winter
Brouwerij Stokhove in Waardamme, West Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Belgian Style - Strong Ale Regular|
Score
6.50
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Bittersweet chocolatearoma of burned malts, touches of dried fruit.
Enriched by the full aroma’s of typical glühwein-spices such as cinnamon,
clove and star anise.
Ending in a heartwarming alcohol-glow.
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MiP (20366) reviewed Waardamse Winter from Brouwerij Stokhove 5 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Bottle, 7%. Distinct Christmas cookie spice aroma. Clear deep red/chestnut colour. Small head. The flavour is vinous and a little watery. Some red berry. Warming alcohol with some alcohol bitterness. The flavour is less spicy than the aroma, but still good.
Bamsen78 (8674) reviewed Waardamse Winter from Brouwerij Stokhove 5 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottle. Pours hazy dark ruby / copper brown with airy tan head. Clear aroma of fruit, malt, caramel and yeast, with spicy touches. Sweetish flavour of the same ingredients, with hoppy touches and distinct notes of cinnamon and cloves. Estery and malty aftertaste with touches of cloves and hops. Reasonable.
Appearance - 2 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Bottle from LDW. Murky brown colour, almost no foam. Nose of winter spices (anise, ginger, cinnamon). Rather sweet and spicy, easy drinkable.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed Waardamse Winter from Brouwerij Stokhove 7 years ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 6.5
Stokhove's winter beer (a term with more commercial value than the old 'kerstbier' or Christmas beer), basically the Waardamse Dubbel spiced with cinnamon, cloves and star anise. Gusher, but slowly so and therefore manageable enough. Medium thick but quickly thinning, pale yellowish beige, hardly lacing head settling as a creamy ring around the glass and a disparate greyish 'veil' over the middle of a cloudy, deep caramel brown beer with ochre-ish, 'muddy' edges, unsurprisingly becoming more obvious when the - already badly executed - yeast sediment is added. Aroma of very 'real' cloves, with the star anise and the (raw) cinnamon coming right behind, overpowering more basic impressions of soggy brown bread, stewed plum, pear, banana, chewing gum, nutmeg, damp earth, wet caramel candy, pecan nuts, tree leaves, glue, vague hint of old coffee grounds. Sweetish onset but not overly so, hints of banana (including some bubblegum), ripe pear and medlar, with 'dim' sourish edges; carbonation - especially for a Belgian ale - remains on the soft side. Smooth, bit resinous body, brown-bready and thinly caramelly malt base with a certain soapiness to it, lingering fruity esters soon pushed aside by this very 'Christmassy', indeed Glüwhein-coloured combination of strong cloves, slightly less strong star anise and still less strong but still very recognisable cinnamon, drenching the whole in an ethereal, perfumey, resiny 'old school' spice rack effect, but, as I expected, also adding a certain wryness to the finish, where only a dash of background earthy-herbal hoppiness is to be observed so that the underlying bready maltiness can flow through more or less unabated. Very spicy but also very malty beer, way overspiced for me personally, but admittedly it meets the standards set by old-fashioned, Scotch-based Belgian Christmas ales in the 20th century. Feels a tad 'dirty' and undercarbonated and would certainly benefit from a more generous hop dosage, but there is worse on the market during the darkest time of the year, I suppose. Not undrinkable if a bit amateurish, but I had my fair share of this kind of spicy clichés back in the day and it's about time Belgian brewers come up with more innovative recipes rather than spicing a dark ale with old Glühwein spices like this one.