Bottle, 75cl corked. Nice boozy and fruity aroma and flavor. Gentle woody notes. Sweet, not too sweet though. Apricot, peach. Interesting, nothing more. 647414 260623

75cl bottle from Cora in Brussels.
F: medium, white, good retention.
C: deep gold, light hazy.
A: dried fruits, rhum, coconut, pear.
T: full malty base, rhum, coconut, pear, honey, dried orange, bitscuits, decent bitterness, medium carbonation, not bad yet quite boozy all together to be great beer.

750 ml bottle. Pours a dark amber with full foamy head. Aromas of herbal and fruity rum, almost leaning towards coconut; with raisins, oak, and toasted malts. Flavors of fruity rum, raisins and biscuity malts. A bit of alcohol on the finish. NIce.

This year's Excellence du Val-Dieu was apparently aged on Barbados rum barrels, boosting the alcohol level to a formidable 14% ABV; 75 cl bottle from the Delhaize supermarket in Lokeren, shared at Craftmember's birthday party. Egg-white, medium sized, moussey head, remaining proportionally stable on a misty ochre-tinged deep peach blonde robe. Aroma of stale coconut flakes, brown rum rather upfront indeed, caramel, marmalade, fried apple, candied peach, vanilla-breathing oak wood, almond, 'white' alcohol (wodka), tea. Sweetish onset, hints of peach, apricot and Doyenné pear, slight sourish edge, softishly carbonated with slick mouthfeel, more slender than one would expect at this ABV - clearly thinned by added alcohol. Honeyish, lightly caramelly, bit biscuity core indeed increasingly soaked in heavy rum, with all the exotic coconut effects and heating booze you can expect; woodiness remains very background, making me wonder if this is not more infused with rum than actually rum barrel aged... A slight orangey citric note lingers at the back and some vague floral hoppiness is there, but most of the finishing bitterness comes from the rum. Still, all things considered, this liquor does not behave too badly: I probably would not have guessed its superstrength of 14% had I not known, so I guess one could say that the alcohol is better hidden than expected. Drinkable, in that sense, but I have never been impressed by this brewery's output (in spite of it being the first 'modern' one in Belgium to be housed in an actual abbey, ignoring the trappist breweries); only Val-Dieu Grand Cru put a smile on my face when it was first released, but that is now a long time ago. I am wildly guessing Val-Dieu Triple was the base beer used here and if that is the case, one would expect more harsh booziness in this rum version, given the full 5% difference in ABV... In the end, I personally think this superhigh ABV is uncalled for and this winter beer is certainly not worth its relatively high price tag (for, essentially, a supermarket beer!); it is far from the refined masterpiece I tend to expect at that level, but many Belgian beer drinkers will surely be impressed. Passes...