Hul Extra Stout
De Wilde Brouwers in Merelbeke, East Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Stout - Foreign / Extra Regular|
Score
6.99
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Sloefmans (15519) reviewed Hul Extra Stout from De Wilde Brouwers 2 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7
Good cream-tan head, stable, over virtually black-opaque beer. Liquorice, ink, roast, some sweetness suggested. Cigarette ash in the mouth, roast, dry, again liquorice but without excess sweetness. Malt & roast malt underneath. Quite slick, rather well bodied; good carbonation, bit chewy. Meritorious. Probably better than the historical original. Yet, I prefer the Oud Bruins from these guys vastly!
Alengrin (11675) reviewed Hul Extra Stout from De Wilde Brouwers 3 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
During remediation work in the ground beneath the brewery, the Wilde Brouwers stumbled upon old bottles of Hul Extra Stout, apparently an export stout once brewed by Brouwerij Hul in Merelbeke (where Wilde Brouwers are situated); this brewery, originally called L'Ancre until it was taken over by Auguste Van Hul in 1932, ceased activities in 1963, so one can imagine how old these bottles must have been. Export stouts were quite a rarity in Belgium in those days, with most stout brewed here being low-alcohol milk stouts (compare with the English classic in this genre, Mackeson), and with the popularity of strong stouts nowadays, I think it was a brilliant idea to try and recreate this historical beer. Thick and frothy, foamy, cobweb-lacing, pale greyish beige, stable head on a black beer with deep mahogany brown edges. Aroma of coffee grounds, burnt wood, charcoal, cigars, old liquorice, dried porcini, nutmeg, black peppercorns. Dry onset, something lightly astringent even, very low in sweetness with dried prune hints mingled with a subtle umami effect (porcini); medium carb with rounded, slick mouthfeel. Burnt toast, roasted walnut and eventually chicory fill the mouth, with leathery and spicy accents (clove, black pepper) and something ashy in the finish; leafy hops and a touch of earthy yeastiness further fill a long, roasty, dry, bit ashy and coffeeish finish. This is as old school as it gets: it is probably a bit hoppier and stronger - or, if you will, 'modern' - than the original was, because after all they had no fresh beer to go by and did not use the yeast from the original, but it does convey a very 'old school' feeling which I absolutely love in an old genre (or group of genres) like stout. In trying to grasp what a twentieth-century export stout tasted like, Wilde Brouwers did a very good job if you ask me; I heard that they are still looking for people old enough to have enjoyed the original version back in the mid-twentieth-century and I seriously doubt if they can still find some local octogenarian with a memory vivid enough to recall this beer, but I pray that they do. Very solid and very old-fashioned stout, an important addition to this interesting brewery's range if you ask me.
tderoeck (22946) reviewed Hul Extra Stout from De Wilde Brouwers 4 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
9/IV/22 - 75cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ Cybu’s place, BB: 15/I/26 (2022-344)
Clear dark brown to black beer, big creamy beige head, pretty stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: floral, soapy, roasted, metallic, a bit malty. MF: lively carbon, medium body, creamy texture. Taste: very roasted, bitter, metallic, grains, malty, a bit soapy. Aftertaste: grains, very roasted, coffee notes, malty, metallic finish.