Petrus Infinitum Oak & Hops
Brouwerij De Brabandere in Bavikhove, West Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Belgian Style - Tripel Special|
Score
6.87
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CLAVIS AD CAELUM
Petrus bezit de sleutel tot de hemel. Slim gezien van wijlen Albert De Brabandere: door zijn bier Petrus te noemen was zijn plek in de hemel verzekerd.
ANGEL'S SHARE
Met Petrus Infinitum gaat zijn kleinzoon nog een stap verder. Een deel van het bier dat je in je hand houdt, heeft 2 jaar op eikenhout gerijpt. Hierdoor is een bepaald percentage met de tijd uit het vat verdampt richting hemel: “het deel der engelen” of Angels’ Share. Het is onze manier om Petrus vanop aarde Petrus Infinitum te laten proeven. Nogmaals in ruil voor de sleutels naar de hemel?
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Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Bottle from Colruyt.
A: clear golden, stable, foamy, off-white head.
A: ripe pear, apple, coriander, bread crust, honey, citrus zest.
T: sweet apple, pear, banana, sourish wheat, spices.
F: floral hops, soapy coriander, warming vodka-like alcohol.
P: medium body, slick-moussy texture, fizzy carbonation.
Very middle-of-the-road, so extra disappointing.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
750ml corked & caked number. It pours ever so slightly hazy golden - blonde with a thick, fluffy white head. The aroma is estery fruits upfront, pear, melon, golden delicious apple, candy, pear drops, boiled sweets, pic n mix, oak, touch of vanilla, bread & butter pudding, perfumed and a touch of sour candy. The taste is crispy, dry, perfumed, fragrant, slightly tart, pear, apple skin, ripe melon, firmly dry oak, tannin, some bitterness, ambergris, puckering cider, twist of citrus, fizzy candy, sherbet, vanilla, splash of sweet white wine and some boozey warmth with a drying finale. Medium body and moderate+ foamy carbonation. Quite nice depth of flavour as it warms. Interesting and quffable.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7
Bavik celebrating their 130th anniversary with this special one-off in the Petrus brand, with which they started producing ‘specialty’ beers in the seventies (in those days meaning ales rather than pale lager or table beers). It seems to contain a portion of what they refer to as ‘foederbier’ that has spent two years in oak barrels, and at the same time wants to underscore the hops used – clearly both these aspects draw inspiration from the craft beer movement; an odd twist here is apparently that in order to kickstart fermentation, they employed a male choir from Emelgem, whose voices allegedly produced the right vibrations for the yeast to ‘wake up’ (and if you do not believe that, we will tell you something else, as the old Flemish saying goes). Comes from a corked luxury bottle (75 cl). Opens with a loud bang and ‘gunsmoke‘ but no gushing. Huge, foamy, plaster-like lacing, inches thick, snow white, regular head over a misty ‘old golden’ robe with ochre-ish tinge and lively visible sparkling. Aroma of ripe banana, coriander seed, cold potato mash, grass, cooked turnip, a hint of oak wood but very subtle and not really ‘vanilla-ish’ as it ought to be, dry hay, raw kale, white soap, ‘oude graanjenever’, white bread dough. Fruity onset predominantly from isoamylacetate (banana ester), some red apple and pear notes, perhaps green kiwi somewhere, lively and somewhat stingy carbonation with rounded, slick body; cereally pale malts ‘completed’ with white candi sugar to remain light-bodied, a traditional Belgian practice in strong ales, carrying some residual sugariness but any overt sweetness is tempered by grassy, floral hops which provide an earthy, somewhat astringent bitterness (the latter effect of course coming from gin-like alcohol as well). Sadly and contrary to what I was hoping, these hops provide little else apart from that bitterness – remaining very understated in aroma. Why not use New World hops here? Worse even, and ignoring that annoying coriander effect, the wood fails at its mission too: its drying tannins are certainly noticeable, but I do not get this retronasal vanillin effect I expect from an oak aged beer (even if it is only partially oak aged like this one). Lastly, I wonder what the ‘foederbier’ is they mention: considering some of these Petrus beers, including the first one, an ‘oud bruin’ still in production, actually are made with soured cask beer, I was hoping for some of that good old Petrus Aged Pale to at least constitute part of this Infinitum’s flavour – but there is nothing sour to it. No real ‘foederbier’ here in the traditional sense (perhaps Petrus Tripel aged on oak chips instead?), no depth of flavours, no lovely oak wood or hop aromas: this celebrational beer sadly disappoints on several levels. A bit more expressive oak ageing, an ‘infusion’ of actual sour foederbier, or even the use of more aromatic hops: anything could have made this creation more interesting; now it is only subtly different from regular Petrus Tripel. I guess Bavik did not want to shock their regular audience’s undereducated palate but if this is the best they could come up with to celebrate their anniversary, then they had better not created a new beer at all and marketed a pack of all of their beers in one luxury packaging or something like that… Sorry but I was expecting (a lot) more here!
gave a cheers!
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottle from local AH XL supermarket. Nice bottle. Color: Lightly hazy golden, large white head. Aroma: Fruity, yeasty. Taste: Yeasty, malty and hoppy at the same time. Oak wood (tastes like oak chips are used, although on the label is stated that 'part of the beer is aged for 2 years on oak barrels'), some tannins. Dry-ish mouthfeel. Light tartness. Floral hop, light to moderate bitterness. Also light to moderate sweetness. subtle fruity notes of stonefruit and light hints of lemon. Sounds quite complex altogether, and indeed this beer has some complexity but at the same time also feels a bit 'cheaply produced' and unbalanced. Medium body, just over average carbonation. Overall ok.