Bottle from Craftmember, cheers! French brown ale, very agressive gusher, with beer exploding from the bottle upon opening - about 1/3 went straight down the sink. Sigh... Very thick, dense and frothy, lightly lacing, pale yellowish beige head over a misty, deep mahogany brown beer with vague purplish hue, but very dark in general appearance. Aroma of pear syrup, chestnuts, black tea, treacle, caramelized sugar and caramel sauce, hazelnuts, coffee cream, incense, black cherries, candied figs, dry tree leaves, honey, dry baker’s yeast, cranberry sauce, old dusty chocolate bars, sweet blue grapes, raisins, dried banana, liquorice, dry earth, faint iron. Estery onset, sweeter hints of plum, dried fig, banana and pineapple mixed with a deeper sourishness of blackberries and elderberries - yet missing the sherry- or red wine vinegar-like ’depth’ of a true Flemish red, with the sweetness prevailing; sharp carbonation, slick and light body. Very (hazel)nutty and slightly toasty malt middle, bready and butterscotch candy-like aspects here and there with a thin metallic edge, dusty and powdery yeast feeling in the end, dryish with a herbal, earthy hop bitterness to it, yeastiness lingering, otherwise on the watery side (unsurprising for a 5-% ABV beer), with that slightly metallic nuttiness persisting after swallowing. This was classified here as a Flemish red (sour brown) but the sour aspects of it seem unintended and the result of infection, which probably accounts for the strong gushing as well; in its general make-up, its hazelnutty maltiness and ’light-bodiedness’, this seems to be intended much more as an Anglosaxon brown ale. Not too bad in that sense, compared with Newcastle Brown, Sam Smith’s Nut Brown Ale and the like, the bitterish-sweet nuttiness actually works well here, but obviously the sourish infection aspect, the metallic side notes and the very violent gushing are undeniable flaws.