Bouteille 75cl, BB 01/02/2026, bottled 02/2024, batch# B160 partagée avec Patrick à Guata.
Brune foncée virant presque sur le noire, col crémeux et tenace café au lait.
Arôme respire le classique avec une belle base maltée oscillant sur un excellent chocolaté, caramel, grillé/toasté avec un léger parfum de houblon en retrait – ici, je retrouve plus un effet houblonné belge avec une amertume qui se dégage / léger herbacé voire fruité sur les agrumes.
Palais est léger, bien ficelé avec une belle dose de malts – c’est bien un bon porter avec un caractère grillé, chocolaté noir amer, cacao. Le tout est appuyé par un apport houblonné qui est en ligne avec ce que je retrouve dans une XX – amertume franche américaine mais gardant un côté ‘belge’.

(Draught at Café Derat, Utrecht, 18 July 2024) Black colour with frothy, beige head. Malty, roasted, hoppy nose with black coffee, dark chocolate, citrus, grapefruit and pine needles. Malty, roasted, hoppy taste with notes of dark chocolate, coffee, citrus, pine needles, dark bread and a generous citric/piney bitterness. Medium body, dry. Well made and quite hoppy porter. Very nice.

Bottle at home in Hackney - picked up from HOTM. Pours clear, deep brown with a big, frothy, tan head. Light sweet flavour with nice dry and ashy roast, earth, drying cocoa, burnt grass. Light to medium bodied with massaging carbonation. Bitter finish, dry, toothy, more baking cocoa, burnt grass, earth. Solid gear.

A1keg at cloisters ...soft sweet dusty pine roast malts ..Light woody bitter chocolate roast malts ..dark roast ..bitter roast ..woody chocolate roast

One of a couple of new De Ranke beers, intended as an (old school) “American porter”; 75 cl bottle with crown cap shared with Goedele. Thick and foamy, pale greyish-beige, very moussey, membrane-lacing head on a deep caramel brown beer with ‘dirty’ bronze-reddish hue. Aroma of brown bread, forest floor, burnt wood, wild blackberries, soggy toast, wormwood, blueberries, dry caramel, old dried figs, black tea, coffee grounds, tree leaves, bitter garden weeds, hints of rosehip, ashes, dry earth and roasted walnuts. Estery onset, forest fruit-ish with softly tart and restrainedly sweet flavours, lingonberry, blueberry and fig impressions; moderately carbonated with soft, fluffy mouthfeel. Minerally accents lurk under a caramelly, brown-bready and toasted-beech-nutty dark malt character, carrying ‘red’ fruit esters onwards to an earthy, long finish, where this soft underlying tartness meets a leafy, rooty, wormwoody hop bitterness, an ashy roasted bitterness and yeasty spiciness. Strong roasty, coffee grounds-like bitterness prevails, almost stout-like, but retains leafy hoppiness and earthy yeastiness to a strong degree too – so strong, in fact, that this whole beer still feels a lot more Belgian than American in spite of its intentions; this in itself is not an issue for me, of course, because this beer, a ‘Belgian porter’ if you like, boasts classic De Ranke personality to the brim and I love it.

Very dark brown with big fluffy head. Aroma and flavour of earthy bitter floral hop. Bittersweet dark malt too. It's a dark XX Bitter

Bottle. color: Very dark copper, light brown head. Aroma: Roasted malt, cocoa, hints of coffee. Taste: Dry mouthfeel, almost a bit powdery. Mix of roasted malt, cocoa, grassy hop, hints of coffee, spices and citrus fruit. Just over medium body, just below average carbonation. Long lasting dry, bitter and earthy finish. Moderate sweet and over moderate to medium bitterness. Nice new beer from great brewery De Ranke.

On tap @Dynamo, Bruselas. 04/04/2024. Color negro opaco corona de espuma blanca aromas y sabores tostados, café, cuerpo medio.