7.4

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

One of a series of beers by different brewers aged on barrels of Gouden Carolus whisky, this one having been integrated in a series of "Dungeon Master" beers and apparently already the fourth in that series. Advertized as a quad, but at 7% ABV probably closer to a dubbel... Gusher (though not violently) so keep a glass nearby. Foamy, regular, greyish pale beige, uneven-bubbled yet even, hardly lacing and slowly receding head, misty deep chocolate brown with amber-reddish glow. Aroma of overripe pear, medlar, soggy brown bread, damp earth, whisky, banana, cola, raisins, dusty old wood note, old blue plums, Ersatz chocolate, sulfuric aspects ranging from egg yolk to sewer water. Estery onset, sweet with aspects of overripe pear, ripe banana, medlar and cooked blue plum, quite sharpish in carbonation with rounded mouthfeel; sourish blackberry-like undertone, but brown sugariness and overripe dark fruit sweetness prevail, over a caramelly, brown-bready and slightly 'Koetjesreep'-like maltiness. The sugars even stick to the teeth a bit, and combined with spicy aspects in the finish (clove), create a somewhat cola-like effect, albeit perhaps a rather obscure homemade cola rather than the ubiquitous Coca Cola. Sweet sugared tea-like and earthy hoppy notes in the finish, along with vanilla-scenting oak wood and indeed that banana-like aspect of Gouden Carolus whisky, which also adds a rather harsh alcoholic astringency all the way at the back. The whole feels unbalanced, a bumpy ride from rotten fruit over cloying cola-like sweetness and unpleasant organic sulphur to all too obvious booziness; I never expected Hofbrouwerijke to come up with something truly refined, to be frank, and this one kind of confirms my prejudice. Better things have been done with these Gouden Carolus whisky barrels - by other brewers.