4.9

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 3.5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 3.5

Pours very dark brown, tanned medium sized stable head. Scent is very mild, NA like maltyness. Taste is sweet, NA style maltsyrup under a chocolaty, caramelly heavy sweetness that lingers and gets quite unpleasant. Pear syrup ( poepgelei) comes to mind. Arteficial sugars in the finish ( like Diet coke) . pretty pointless drink, as coca cola has more depth and complexity, hell, it even tastes more natural - why would you consume the (low, but still present) alcohol here ?

5.5

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5

Huge thanks to Erzengel for that one! Bottle looks simple but good. Beer in the glass with a small head. Intense sweetish malty aroma. Starts fine malty, shy roasty, quite sweet. Some chocolate, some sweets. Finish well balanced. Okay.

4.8

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4

0,25 l bottle from Erzengel. Thanks a lot. Listed with 1.35% abv. Nearly black with reddish edges in the glass, small short living pale beige head. Smells malty with some sweetness. Taste starts malty with sugar sweetness. Above average carobonation, especially for a stout. Not really a beer for adults.

7

Smooth mild beginning. Slightly grainy with a great malty dark back. The sweeteners are present, malty caramel, slightly roasted with a sweetish, slightly sweetener present aftertaste. Nice but I don’t like chemical sweetener in my beer.

6

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6

'Table stout' by what is - often unknowingly - one of Belgium's largest breweries, active since the 18th century and supplying many supermarket chains with soulless supermarket beers; apparently this ancient brewery is still 'oldskool' enough to add this kind of beer to their range, because it has not been in existence for a very long time (around two decades, or perhaps a bit longer) while it caters for an audience which has become all but extinct by now. Very dark table beers in Belgian style, 'tafelstout' if you will, are an old tradition based on the early 20th-century English milk stout, and has spawned a few other examples which are all but forgotten by now (think of Bavik's Pony Stout), but with that historical background in mind, I was quite eager to give this one a shot. Thick, very moussy, busily cobweb-lacing, pale yellowish beige, regular, large- but even-bubbled, stable head on a very dark mahogany brown beer - indeed near black, with clear burgundy-red edges. Aroma of some or other artisanal cola not from the leading brand, rusty iron (or iron in general - and quite a lot, see the 'hand test'!), hard caramel, brown sugar, aspartame, natural rubber, something vaguely 'burnt' (burnt toast even), nutmeg, Ersatz chocolate, unsugared chewing gum - and again, cola, as in cola powder drink mix. Sugary sweet onset, very cola-like in a homemade kind of way (not Coca Cola - not even Pepsi), treacle and date hints faraway but no actual fruitiness so clearly bottom-fermented, soft carbonation, slick mouthfeel - indeed a tad thin, but what do you expect from a beer at this strength (and the sugar does add some 'body'). Sweetened graininess in the middle, remaining very cola-like, with an unpleasant metallic iron aspect growing stronger and stronger; burnt caramel steps into the picture at a certain point, but otherwise not much more happens, apart from this rubbery element in the finish, unable to divert the attention from the cola and iron flavours which make up the most part of this table beer. No hops are discernable, at least not by me, but there is a background bitterness from the old aspartame, as expected. Very sweet, industrial and quite metallic, but let us be honest here: is this really worse than e.g. Piedboeuf Brune or the large supermarket chains' dark table beers? I think many of the extremely low ratings below have to do with people expecting 'stout' in the modern sense of the word, but anyone familiar enough with Belgian 20th-century beer traditions will recognise this as a typical example of the darkest league of old-fashioned table beer. It does not aim to be more than that, this has nothing to do with the barrel-aged, pompously flavoured imperial stouts you all indulge in (including myself, sure): this is a particular segment of extremely 'oldskool' Belgian table beers very few present-day beer geeks remember or even care about. I do remember, and I admit that the iron and rubber elements here could have been less strong - but this 'tafelstout' does largely meet my expectations so allow me to be the first one here who is not too severe about this 'niche beer' for old folks.

3

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 2 | Overall - 2

This is a tafel beer (very low alcoholic beer) and has nothing to do with a stout. It looks more like a Dutch oud bruin, although this beer is even more watery. Very sweet taste, malty and watery. Only drinkable when served very cold.

4.5

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5

F: big, brownish, quick diminishing. C: dark brown, opaque. A: malt, caramel, brown sugar, metallic, hint of chocolate. T: malty, watery caramel, brown sugar, thin body, average to high carbonation, far from stout but as thirst quencher ok, 0,25l bottle from Shopping Peltri in Overpelt.

2.8

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 2 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 1

Imported from my RateBeer account as Martens Tafel Stout (by Martens):
Aroma: 3/10, Appearance: 2/5, Taste: 2/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 2/20, MyTotalScore: 1.2/5

24/XII/15 - 25cl bottle from Bierfestival Onder 't Schuim @ home - BB: 10/V/16 (2015-1774) Thanks to Inny and Marc for getting me the bottle!

Clear dark brown beer, small creamy beige head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: very malty, sweet, caramel, cow fodder. MF: soft carbon, light body. Taste: very sweet, malty, lots of caramel, sugary, more caramel. Aftertaste: more sugar and caramel, that's about all. Pretty bad.

2.5

Appearance - 2 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 2 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 2

Light brown. Very bland metallic caramel, and same on the palate. Very thin and fizzy, like a lot of table beers.

4.8

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 2 | Overall - 5

Good, but rapidly dwindling cream-tan head over big bubbled deep brown beer. Molasses’ nose, green winterleaves, rainwater. Very sweet, Traubenzucker , cola. Bit of metal(oxide) in the end. Sweetness intensifies in time, resulting in a long, sticky MF and finish. Prickly, but not sustained carbonation. Feels denser than it is. Decent in its kind. I think the kids would love it, if the official nincompoops wouldn’t prevent them of tasting it.