Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

13/VIII/21 - 33cl can from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ home, BB: 1/II/25 (2021-784)

Pretty clear dark brown to black beer, small fizzy aery beige to brown head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: lots of chocolate, lots of dark caramel, some alcohol, cookies, gentle roast, slightly smoky, peanuts? MF: ok carbon, medium to full body. Taste: very sweet start, quite some alcohol, gentle roast, dark caramel, hint of vanilla, slightly sourish. Aftertaste: little bitter, gentle roast, smoky touch, coffee, more roast, sweet touch, some lactose maybe, maple syrup, bit sickening sweet, spicy, soft acidity.

Nice... Not Great. Bit unbalanced.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Can from Geers. Cloudy black, thin, beige head. Aroma of chocolate sauce, dark fudge, pancake, maple syrup, vanilla custard, wet tobacco, candied fig, brown rum, whiff of fried bacon indeed. Taste has (very) sweet candied fig & plum, very thick chocolate & pancake malt body with syrup on top, slightly bitter coffee & just a tiny bit of umami bacon (by association?) in the middle, nougat, touch of caramel. Herbal hoppy finish, dominated though by caramel & syrup and warming whisky alcohol. Full body, oily-syrupy texture, soft carbonation. Sweet stuff by Galea, good in its own right but needs more of that salt & bacon for balance.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

Black with dark head that quickly fizzes out. Aroma has lots if caramel and vanilla. Flavour is sweet but not overly so. I do get the caramel but no salt and also no bacon. Slight earthy savoury maple but it doesn't stand out.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 6.5

Pastry stout flavoured with bacon aroma, maple syrup and salted caramel, one of the latest in Galea’s continuously expanding range. Can shared with Craftmember. Pale greyish beige, open, thin and small-bubbled head on a black beer with thin mahogany edges. Strong aroma of hot chocolate sauce, whisky, ‘Haagse hopjes’, nougat, ‘drop’, some maple syrup but subtle, ‘sirop de Liège’, caramel but not necessarily salted, pecan nut, vanilla – but hardly any bacon at all. Sweet, dense, candied onset, plum candy, pear jam and candied date, very light salty touch now – but remaining really faint and hardly noticeable; the maple syrup as such adds sweetness and syrupiness but its actual, typical flavour too remains understated. Very soft carb, thick and syrupy body with layers of toffee, milk chocolate and some ‘drop’ rather than salted caramel; vanilla and hazelnut aspects retronasally, but the bacon aroma too remains hardly identifiable – I would never have guessed it had I not known, no, I would never even have noticed it. Ends with lingering sticky sugariness, very chocolatey and caramelly, absorbing a great deal of the whisky-like booziness. Sweet, syrupy but still smooth enough to easily drink, so working well as a pastry stout of sorts – but none of the promised added flavours come through in a sufficiently convincing manner: I get the maple syrup even if it is quite subtle, but the salted aspect of the caramel is reduced to a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ detail and the bacon is hardly present at all. Needs more guts when it comes to these flavourings, but as said, a tasty ‘dessert beer’ nonetheless.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Pours black, no real head. Scent is roast, tar, slightly ashy. Burnt malts. Taste is full, maple, slick, ashy, smokey, dark Chocolate. Very decent!