Aeolus & Morpheus

Imported from my RateBeer account as Alvinne / De Molen Aeolus & Morpheus (by Brouwerij Alvinne):
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 2/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 13/20, MyTotalScore: 3.1/5

21/IX/18 - sample @ Borefts Bierfestival Day 1 BB: n/a - (2018-1338) Thanks to the international Ratebeer crew for sharing today's beers!

Clear dark purple beer, no head. Aroma: very roasted, bit malty, funky, infected? MF: ok carbon, medium to light body. Taste: lots and lots of tannins, pretty sour, dry, roasted, red wine notes, bit woody, bitter. Aftertaste: more bitter and tannins, very dry, bit acidic, fruity touch, some vinegar. Not a good combo imho. I like a touch of acidity in stouts, to break the harsh roast, but not an infected one with vinegar notes...

Sampled from tap at Borefts 2018. Hazy, dark brown with a beige head. Sweetish-malty, slightly sourish-funky aroma of caramel, cocoa, licorice, wood. Moderately sweet, malty, gently roasty, medium sour, slightly fruity taste of caramel, cocoa, coffee, wood and redcurrant, followed by a medium long, moderately bitter, quite roasty, tart and woody-dry finish. Medium body, slightly astringent and moderately effervescent mouthfeel, soft carbonation. Nice!

Tap at Borefts. Hazy dark brown with beige head. Sour grains, roast, very bready and earthy, soft berries, light funk, dead leaves. Medium sour, under medium bitter and sweet. Medium bodied.

Borefts 2018 day 1. Black with tan head. Sour grain, rye, dark malts, massive virgin oak wood, black ink. Moderate sour and bitter. Over medium body and soft carbonation. --- Beer merged from original tick of Aeolus & Morpheus on 24 Sep 2018 at 16:17 - Score: 7

Borefts 2018 day 1. Black with tan head. Sour grain, rye, dark malts, massive virgin oak wood, black ink. Moderate sour and bitter. Over medium body and soft carbonation.

"Funky imperial stout" originating from an interesting idea De Molen launched for this year's Borefts beer festival: taking one of their recipes for imperial stout - the style they excel at like (almost) no other in the Netherlands - and add an extra ingredient. This being Alvinne's contribution to the game, it seems logical that they added their Morpheus house yeast strain to it - let's see what this has resulted in. Big thanks to Luís for the bottle! Medium thick, only lightly lacing, pale greyish beige, regular head quickly dissolving in the middle and almost completely opening, but remaining as a firm ring around the glass, over a very dark, murky blackish brown beer with ruddy-ochre edges. Bit unorthodox and challenging, but complex aroma: old coffee filters, old cocoa dust, whisky, wet brown paper, bags of dry peat, maracuja, old reed baskets, moist cigars and very old pipe tobacco, dried prunes, raw earthy black salsify, wet ashes, sweat somewhere but in a very volatile way, clay, tea, glue, raw porcini straight from the woods, mud. Estery onset, tart plum and elderberry impressions with a sweeter, passionfruit-like core, very soft carbonation, full and bit glueish mouthfeel dried by this strong lactic Morpheus tartness - so that a thick nutty and even lightly sweetish-caramelly malt core gets to express itself a bit more in the middle and end phases, adorned with this lingering tart fruitiness (becoming even a bit sharp in the end), and evolving into a (very) old black coffee-ish quality in the end, though refraining from becoming very roasted bitter. Ends a bit 'powdery', notably 'ashy', dry peaty and earthy, a mix of sweet (malt) flavours with that deep, 'sweaty' and eventually quite acidic sourness as well as a touch of gravy-like umami - and of course bitterness from the roasted malts and an earthy dash of hops. All of this is heated by warming, but never too unpleasantly wry alcohol. As much as I hate to say this, being the Alvinne admirer that I am, but the flavours here never get tied together the way they should be; on the contrary, they keep clashing with one another, from the first sniff to the last sip. Too much is going on a the same time here, as if you're watching four movies in one screen (as some people seem to do on YouTube for reasons that will forever remain unclear to me...). The natural sourness of the lactic component of the Morpheus yeast strain just do not seem to match with the toastiness, ashiness and 'dry peatiness' of the basic recipe. At least not yet: everything Alvinne does with this yeast strain, tends to evolve quite expressively in sometimes just a matter of months, and I find it very conceivable that the clashing flavours in this beer will eventually blend together the way they should. For that reason alone, it is a shame that this is made for Borefts only - it will 'en masse' be judged in this young, somewhat 'disorderly' form by all those geeks and tickers, but by the time this beer has gained enough maturity, the festival will have long passed. Still, I have nothing else but this relatively young bottle to judge it, and in this form, I regret to say that this certainly isn't Alvinne at its best - contrary to Brood & Spelen, their other collab with De Molen, which I found to be downright divine.