7 January 2026. Bottled: 23/5/2021. Bottle from Stacks (?).
Hazy dark brown, stable, thin, tan head. Aroma of candi sugar, candied date, raisin, pear syrup, nougat, brandy, vague gingerbread, brown bread. Taste has sweet date, raisin & pear in a syrupy, almondy malt body with a touch of toast and a herbal tea-like note. Herbal hops in the finish, dried fruits, brown sugar, warming brandy-like alcohol. Medium body, slick texture, soft carbonation. Quite likeable; indeed as mentioned before could benefit from a fuller body.

Muddy reddish dark beer with a medium, irregular cream head. Dark bread, caramel, faint roast, breadcrust, hints at fortified wine. Bit roast in the taste, and dark candi sugar; almonds - both sweet and bitter - syrup from fruit (sirop de Liège) is traceable. Very lean body, certainly for a beer dubbed quadruple. The candi sugar... Get rid of the sugar, and beef up the body - and it will only better.

This Corbi-Art story is getting a bit confusing perhaps, so allow me to resume: the original version was brewed by Weerspannige Brouwers until 2016 when this brewery ceased to exist, then Zwarte Bron was erected by one of the two brewers and commissioned a new version of this beer at BeerSelect in Ghent, and now that same Zwarte Bron started to brew Corbi-Art again, but in its own kettles in Sint-Pauwels. In order to distinguish this own-brewed version from the BeerSelect version, the brewer decided to add Vintage to the name of the former, indicating that this one is supposed to be closer to the original Weerspannige recipe than the BeerSelect version was. So three versions of this quadrupel have been in existence so far, two of them retired; a fourth one is allegedly on its way. This 'recreation' of the Weerspannige original, sampled at Gents Bierfestival, shows a thick and mousse-like, membranous-lacing, pale greyish beige, stable head and misty deep caramel brown robe with ruddy-bronze glow. Aroma of brown bread, candied fig, sirop de Liège, fried sweet apples, unsugared chewing gum, nougat, tea leaves, hint of wet cloth somewhere but not disturbingly so. Sweet onset with a very light sourish edge, candi-sugary but nowhere in a cloying way, ripe pear, cooked apple and candied fig impressions in a sauce of 'sirop de Liège', lively but finely carbonated with slight minerally effect, full and smooth mouthfeel; caramelly, toffeeish and pleasantly brown-bready maltiness dominates the middle, developing a mild toasty bitterishness which in the end is accentuated by a herbal hoppiness. This combo makes for a bittersweet ending, paired with that lingering pear syrup aspect and warming, calvados-like alcohol. Indeed this Vintage version comes very close to the original home-brewed Weerspannige version, perhaps a bit smoother though, and with a bit more finishing bitterness - which some, including myself, will interpret as an improvement, however subtle. In any case the 'intermediate' BeerSelect version, though enjoyable enough, is now forgotten, as far as I am concerned.