7.6

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7

Strong dark ale by this young microbrewery in Waregem, shared with Priscilla. Thick and frothy, very creamy, pale greyish beige, stable head on a very dark chocolate brown robe, almost blackish, with ruddy-bronze glow and greyish protein sediment near the bottom of the glass. Aroma of dry caramel, dried plum, hard toffee, coriander seed, dry autumn leaves, nutmeg, clove, Ersatz chocolate, hints of dry old cookies, liquorice, dried thyme, coffee cream, dates, crushed hazelnuts gathered on the forest floor, toast, treacle. Estery-fruity onset, cooked apple, medlar and some pear, sweetish yet nowhere outspokenly sugary, with a dimly sourish undertone; medium carb, softish fluffy mouthfeel, rounded and full. Brown-bready, caramelly dark maltiness then fills the mouth, sweetish yet not utterly sweet - a kind of pure malt sweetness rather than the candi sugar sweetness one more often finds in this kind of beers. Coriander, clove and vague liquorice adorn a yeasty, earthy finish, in which the promised toasted malts do their thing and add late, yet pleasantly mouth-filling malt bitterness, while hops and considerable bready yeast ensue. The alcohol remains remarkably well hidden - I thought I was drinking a dubbel the whole time rather than a quadrupel. Pleasantly yeasty-bready, malty and 'pure' Belgian strong dark, one I liked a lot more than I was expecting even - it seems this Straete brewery may be one to watch in the near future.