Bottle 33cl. @home poured into a tulip glass. Sour nose. Opaque amberbrown colour, good frothy off-white head, diminishing slowly, light lacing. Complex aroma, sweet malt, caramel, fortified wine, dark fruit, figs, some funk, vinous notes, earthy notes. Taste medium sweet, light bitter and sour, tart, tannins, dark fruit, grapes, some medicinal notes, retronasal earthy impression. Medium body, oily to watery texture, soft carbonation, rather fruity sweet and sour aftertaste, grapes, berries, mineral notes, herbal impression, bitterrish finish, easy to drink, very interesting, good.

6/IV/24 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ Barjac (FR), BB: II/2028, 6104 bottles, lot 2020-02 (2024-212)

Clear dark amber to chestnut red brown beer, creamy dense beige head, pretty stable, a little adhesive. Aroma: a bit funky, pretty oxidised, earthy, leather, metallic touch, a bit weird. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: bitter start, dry, a little metallic, funky, some tannins, earthy, more bitterness. Aftertaste: bitter finish, dry, a little metallic, some tannins, earthy, tobacco, a bit oxidized, more acidic, bitter notes, spicy, nutmeg, ok but not great.

Bottle at Nightshop - Brussels. Pours clear deep amber with a staunch, frothy yellow-beige head. Lightly sweet with rich brett funk, notes of bandaids, barnyard, dried Berries. Medium bodied with active, massaging carbonation. Funky finish, more dried semi-dark berries, toasted malts, brett. Novel stuff. Quite drinkable.

Hazy orange golden beer with a beige head. Aroma of tart red apples, yeast, caramel. Taste of tart caramelized malt, grains, red fruits yeast.

Small cream-amber head, fairly stable over cloudy red-brown beer. Vinous nose, (white) chocolate, grapes in molten chocolate, liqueurish, even perfumey, almondy. Vinous, sweet almonds, rosewater. Bit (red) grapes, if faint. Again faint (white) chcolate. Bit overripe grapes too, alas, nearly rotting. Finish has a combination of fruitsugars and acidic carbonation. Complex, but not quite balanced. Quite carbonated (amphora?!), long acidity, medium bodied, bit slick. Not bad, good idea, probably, but the result shows some, minor, loose ends.

Bottle sample @ BXL BeerFest 2022.
Couleur cuivre sur un léger trouble, col fin blanc-cassé.
Arôme présente un nez assez belge et ce malgré l'usage d'une levure Kveik, fruits noirs et rouges, frais assez sec. L'usage par la brasserie d'amphores contribue à ce bouquet finement minéral. Rétro-nasal assez discret pourtant sur un apport de houblon Polaris dont le nez mentholé et pin est assez caractéristique.
Palais est finement malté - raisin avec ce caractère de moût, petite note de fruit rouge avec ce profil fermenté qui reste assez poussiéreux en fin de bouche. L'usage d'amphore continue à être la signature de cette brasserie où cela se ressent au niveau du palais - ici un effet minéral qui est repris par l'usage de levure kveik.

Hazy red brown colour with thin head. Aroma and flavour have a woody dryness and some cork. Also some wild funky elements and red fruit sweetness.

Grape ale (the Italian way, so to speak) aged not on wooden barrels, but on stone amphoras, as Heilig Hart has been doing for a while now - a highly interesting premise indeed. Initially thick, moussy, pale beige head but opening and eventually dissolving completely, cloudy 'dirty' caramel brown robe with vaguely purplish tinge. Aroma of soggy brown bread, grape skins, fig, caramel, grape juice, old walnuts, minerals (the amphoras indeed!), very old Saint-Emilion wine, lots of blue and green plum, bitter herb tea, wormwood even, redcurrant, passionfruit, accents of green plants or fresh tree branches. Crisp, tart onset, lots of blackberry- and redcurrant-like fruit acidity from the added grapes, astringent grape skin tannins too but not too harshly so, sweetish core, fizzy carb, supple mouthfeel; the fruit sourness dries an inherently sweetish, fluffy bready and caramelly maltiness, but then things take an unexpected turn to the bitter side, with a long, herbal-bitter finish, no doubt a combination of grape skins, grape seeds and - first and foremost - the little branches of the grapes themselves, as apparently whole bunches of grapes were thrown in here. Lingering sour grape juiciness in the end too, alongside this thin line of minerality from the stone vessels it came from. Complex and interesting, but with a weird 'green plant bitterness' to it which I personally would have tried to avoid, as it stands in the way of the pure juiciness and fleshiness of the actual grapes. That said, as with e.g. (overhyped?) Antidoot, even the inclusion of a bitter plant-like element in what is essentially a kind of sour ale is easily forgiven considering the uniqueness and originality of the idea itself. Not the best of these new Heilig Hart sours for me, but still just as interesting as the other ones.