Barrel aged luxury (75 cl) editions of the old Hertog Jan Grand Prestige are hard to come by and only distributed in the Netherlands – but have continuously been very coveted in the past few years, with beer geeks going all crazy about them (you can guess the prices charged for bottles circulating in the second hand market). Considering this is AB InBev, which must have keenly studied and cunningly executed some or other guideline “how to create a hype in the beer world”, I never really bothered too much about them, but I am nevertheless very happy to be able to taste the last version in which Gerard van den Broek, the brewery’s near-iconic head brewer, was involved before he went into retirement – so big thanks to Bart for wanting to share this coveted and rare bottle with me. Opens with a bang and some ‘gunsmoke’, but no gushing. Thick and dense, foamy, pale yellowish beige, pillowy, membrane-lacing head, resting firmly on a deep bronze-brown beer with purplish-burgundy glow, remaining clear till the end so obviously filtered (which I think is a shame for this kind of beer – but does not come as a surprise in this case). Aroma of hard caramel, brown bread, sirop de Liège, obvious single malt whisky (the barrels used), lots of vanilla-scenting oak wood, hints of clove, toast, burnt muscovado sugar, almond powder, some iron and bubblegum in the background. Sweet, clean onset, candi sugar but nothing cloying, low in esters, some ripe pear, candied fig and vague baked banana notes, softish carb with very slick mouthfeel, very lean and not really full-bodied (especially not considering style and strength). Caramelly, bit peanutty, toffeeish maltiness with bubblegummy core and a light toasty-bitterish edge, carrying the candi sugar sweetness onwards, but the sweetness gets well-balanced by effective woody tannins (breathing clear oaky vanilla retronasally) and strong, if nowhere annoyingly astringent, warming, obviously whisky-flavoured alcohol. Hop bitterness remains very subtle and hidden in the background. Very rounded, sleek and noticeably ‘designed’ beer which cannot completely hide its macro-industrial AB InBev nature, but admittedly tasty within that context and certainly among the best AB InBev beers I had to date – or should I say, the only one I moderately but sincerely enjoyed so far… I hate to admit it, but this one did make me curious for other variants so who knows, maybe I will start a chase for a few bottles of Hertog Jan Grand Prestige Vatgerijpt after all.

Ruikt enorm boterig,en zo smaakt het ook, roomboter met caramel, een boterbabbelaar… dat is het… verder wat dun qua textuur,niet helemaal mijn ding