Brewer's Nightmare - 2.3 Buffalo Trace BA
BramBrass in Heestert, West Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Brewed at/by: Brouwerij De FeniksStout - Imperial Regular Out of Production
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Score
7.53
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Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
2 February 2025. Bottle from Deconinck (presumably).
Guessing this is 5yrs old? Cloudy black, unstable, frothy, beige head. Aroma of bourbon, green apple, vanilla bean, shoe polish, dark fudge, chocolate sauce, black olive. Taste has sweet fig & date in a thick dark-chocolatey, dark fudge-like malt body surrounded by bitter coffee and umami olive. Peppery hops in the finish, lingering vanilla (oak), sweetened dark chocolate and warming bourbon alcohol. Full body, oily texture, soft carbonation. Exemplary BBA; clearly the groundwork for all those Brambrass iterations to come.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
2/II/25 - 33cl bottle from De Hopduvel (I think?), shared @ Boardgame Tasting (Nathan&Anke), BB: 19/V/25 (2025-100)
Clear dark brown to black beer, nice thick creamy beige head, pretty stable, a bit adhesive. Aroma: green apples, sourish impression, vanilla, oxidized, some soy sauce, caramel, sweet impression. MF: ok carbon, medium to full body. Taste: nice, lovely whisky flavours up front, vanilla touch, some bourbon, a good bitter roast. Aftertaste: nice, caramel, a bit malty, more roast, alcohol, vanilla, oxidized, more alcohol.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Another new variant in this series of barrel aged BramBrass stouts, bottle bought from Bier Bazaar in Ypres. Medium thick, mocha-beige, creamy, regularly shaped head lacing in dots over a black beer with misty mahogany edge. Aroma of bourbon indeed (the Buffalo Trace that was announced), hard caramel, ‘fondant’ chocolate bars, shoe polish, old liquorice, vanilla-scenting oak (strong), Havana cigars, toffee, whisky, candied dates, hints of gravy, cappuccino, clove, bayleaf and black pepper. Sweetish onset, raisins, dates and a touch of ripe pear, quite fizzily carbonated (perhaps a bit much so for style), full and oily, slightly sticky mouthfeel; rounded, toffeeish-caramelly and bitter-chocolatey malt body with a toasted pecan-nutty edge, evolving into more roasty black coffee bitterness towards the end – even though the caramelly sweetness remains dominant, so that the overall effect is more latté macchiato-like than deeply black-coffeeish. The bourbon, setting in at the end, only amplifies this rounded caramel sweetness, while tannic woody effects – including the familiar ‘oaky vanilla’ scent – bring some balance. Vague herbal and earthy accents accompany the booziness in the finish, but the booze does not become overly wry or burning anywhere and remains well integrated in the whole. Sweet and rounded compared with others in this series, sleek and to the point – in other words, very well made once again, maybe technically even the best Brewer’s Nightmare so far, though not necessarily the most interesting one.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Deep black colour, brown foam. Quite roasty and ashy with hints of coffee, vanilla and whisky. Taste is rather roasty with sweet whisky aftertaste.