minutemat (16258) reviewed Zoutoise from La Manufacture Urbaine 2 months ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5
330ml bottle from Noz Lomme. Pours a misty blonde, good white head. Pleasant blonde aroma, has an enticing sugary sweetness to taste, not bad overall.
jefverstraete (7489) reviewed Zoutoise from La Manufacture Urbaine 1 year ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5
Bottle from a night shop. Lots of carbonation. Light sweet, some harsh bitterness, cardboard. Not very well balanced.
Grumpelmies (1741) reviewed CharleRoy350 from La Manufacture Urbaine 1 year ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 5.5
Bottle. Slightly cloudy orange/amber with an ok white head. Aroma of oranges, lemons, malts and coriander. Taste follows aroma plus grains, orange marmelade and zest. Slightly spicy. Moderate bitterness. Medium to strong carbonation. Basically ok but also kind of disappointing. Underkill.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 6
On tap. Pours black with short tan head. Aromas of roasted malts and black coffee. Flavors of same.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Kerstbier Festival. Clear deep amber beer with a big off white head. Aroma of christmas spices, cinnamon, dark malt. Taste of intense grainy malt, cereals, caramel and cinnamon.
Sloefmans (15389) reviewed La Bièraki from La Manufacture Urbaine 2 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 4.5 | Texture - 5 | Overall - 5
Receding off-white head over cold-hazed amber-orange beer. Smells almondy-sweet, frangipane, Belgian buns, faint oxydation. Coriander, human sweat, again oxydation. Slick, good carbonation, light to medium bodied. Pfff... Txs to Stef!
Alengrin (11609) reviewed CharlesRoy Cherry from La Manufacture Urbaine 3 years ago
Appearance - 5 | Aroma - 2.5 | Flavor - 2 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3.5
Artificial fruit beer (or in fact a 'rouge') in this series of beers from Charleroi, basically a wheat beer with added cherry aroma and red colourant based on elderberries, as well as, quote the label, soda saccharin (an industrial sweetener often used in soft drinks and the like) and acesulfame K (dito). I dread ingredients lists like that so this one is for science only. Slight gusher opening with a hiss, but when done carefully, the crown cap can be removed without any loss (too bad - this means more for me to drink...). Foamy, glass-filling, regular- but quite large-bubbled, crackling, membrane-lacing, egg-white head, very slowly thinning on a clear, amber-glowing orange blonde beer with vaguely rosy tinge and fierce sparkling rising up from the 'core'. Artificial and perfumey aroma as feared, with impressions of Fanta Red, grenadine mixed with sparkling water, candyfloss, red cherry candy and 'poepegatjes' (something I passionately hate), freshly ironed synthetic clothing, industrial honey, bath foam, sweetened breakfast cereals, wet cardboard, swimming pool chlorine (!) and an odd background hint of stinkweed. Lemonade-like, sickly sweet onset, the sweeteners cloying to the teeth, indeed with a cherry-like aspect but in a most artificial, candied cherry- and red Haribo candy-like way, with little in the way of actual fruity esters, let alone real fruit; very fizzy carbonation, numbing a bit, slender body. Cereally graininess under ongoing red candy sweetness - though I have to admit that this sweetness is a tad less sticky and dominant here than in many other 'rouges' (especially the stronger ones) brewed throughout Belgium. Light bread-crusty malt aspect in the end, but remaining overpowered by the elderberry and cherry additions, with that awful lemonade-like sweetness and spritziness continuing till the last drop; a chlorine-like effect, already very noticeable orthonasally, returns retronasally in the end, quite strongly so even, to the point where I am beginning to wonder if it is wise to have another sip; hops remain very limited, if discernable at all. LaM-U's throw at the 'rouge' subgenre of Belgian 'fruit' beers only adds yet another monstrosity to the heap: this is even worse and more 'unbeery' than the Loups cherry and raspberry beer I had before this one, with a lot more artificiality, to the extent that there is so little 'beeriness' left here that it cannot even be called 'unbalanced' anymore. Wittekerke Rosé and its congeners revisited the Wallonian way, overcarbonated, overly sweetened, artificially aromatized and with a bizarre, chemical chlorine effect I just cannot get past. Just when I was starting to appreciate this brewery, I encounter this rubbish... Drain pour of the worst kind. Well, almost the worst at least, because indeed there is even worse out there - I will not go into that here.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed La Mine from La Manufacture Urbaine 3 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5.5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Tripel created for the Bois du Cazier site, an open air museum on a former coal mine and dedicated to a mining disaster that took place there in the fifties and claimed more than two hundred lives; possibly an alias or near-alias of Triple L. From a 75 cl bottle bought at the Bois du Cazier site. Thick, egg-white, fluffy and foamy, cobweb-lacing, stable head on an initially clear, warm orangey ‘old golden’ beer with lots of visible sparkling, shifting to a misty ‘dirty’-orangey peach and eventually a muddy ochre as more of the bottle is emptied into the glasses. Aroma of ‘oude jenever’, old bread crust, dried apple peel, petrichor, dried apricot, moist cellar, burnt rubber (DMTS?) and other sulfuric aspects (freshly lit matches), dried wormwood, damp hay, wet towel and even some band aid. Dryish-fruity onset, dried apricot and apple peel, some tamarillo, fizzy and stingy carbonation; smooth, lean body. Bread-crusty, rusk-like maltiness, slightly toasty-bitterish at a certain point, under this retronasally returning sulfuric aspect (burnt rubber) paired with phenolic ‘band aid’ and damp kitchen towel, in an altogether musty finish; lots of earthy, leafy hop bitterness underneath, long-lasting and paired with warming, very ‘jenever’-like alcohol. Earthy, yeasty and phenolic ‘tripel’ of sorts, dry and bitter as typifies Wallonia when it brews locally (though I may be guilty of overgeneralization now), but unfortunately not in good condition, with lots of odd and unpleasant ‘off’ effects, I suspect resulting from brewing errors combined with bad storage conditions.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed CharlesRoy IPA from La Manufacture Urbaine 3 years ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
IPA as interpreted by La Manufacture Urbaine, the leading name in artisanal brewing in Charleroi. Bottle from a pack bought at Bois du Cazier in nearby Marcinelle. Thick, egg-white, thickly cobweb-lacing, hops-enhanced, foamy head on an completely clear, warm 'old golden' robe with 'metallic' pale orangey tinge, remaining as such till the end so obviously filtered. Aroma of yellow grapefruit peel, fresh southernwood, lemon balm, old Betterfood cookies, dry Graham crackers, orange peel pith, pine resin, bread crust, pink peppercorns, vague notes of rusty iron, old cheese rind, freshly baked croissants, dried lavender. Restrainedly fruity onset, some green pear and unripe nectarine impressions, moderately carbonated with slight minerally accents, slick and bit oily mouthfeel. Rounded cereally pale maltiness with a dry croissant- and very faintly biscuit-like edge, soon bittered by a firm, dominant, peppery hoppiness, releasing retronasal effects of crushed peppercorns, dried grapefruit peel and even some light pine, stretching out long into the finish and creating a dry and quenching effect. Hardly bothered by phenolic or overly estery effects, this is a quite clean, straightforward but old school American West Coast-ish Belgian IPA - or otherwise put, less 'Belgian' and more American than most other Belgian IPAs. Even though it has a generic feel to it and could do with a more biscuity malt profile as well as more aromatic dry-hopping, this is very acceptable, clean, sleek and solid for a Walloon IPA. Enjoyed it, but I will probably soon forget about it as well.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed CharlesRoy Zébrée from La Manufacture Urbaine 3 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Pilsener as interpreted by Charleroi's leading microbrewery, bottle (indeed with zebra pattern - apparently evoking the colours of the city's coat of arms) bought at the Bois du Cazier site in nearby Marcinelle. Foam tries to creep out of the bottle neck some five seconds after opening, but no gushing. Thinnish, finely 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, snow white, breaking head retaining well around the edge and in flat islands in the middle; initially clear pale straw to golden blonde robe with lively visible sparkling, misty and more yellowish with sediment. Weak aroma, hints of pita bread dough, even some sourdough, pumice, cold chamomile tea, faint notes of gypsum, grass, dried sweat, dry linen cloth and sweetclover - "des arômes peu complexes" indeed. Fizzy onset, sharply and very minerally carbonated but I guess this typifies the genre, some green apple acetaldehyde and a vague hint of unripe hard apricot somewhere, supple and slender mouthfeel; minerally accents keep accompanying a cereally and thinly doughy pale malt flavour with dim sourish undertone (more of a minerally nature than truly sour - the carbon dioxide, I presume), to a thin finish with more bready notes and a light grassy hop bitter touch which pleasantly lingers for a while. The fizz keeps bubbling into the throat - but as said, high amounts of effervescence are typical for the style and generally there is nothing unnatural or 'off' to be found here: this Zébrée indeed resembles the unpasteurized 'regional' Pilseners Belgium had in large numbers many a decade ago. Simple as intended, but clean, 'honest' and fully natural, so by all means a much better option than the pasteurized, cheaply made, totally bland versions the macro breweries keep forcing into the throat of the average 'pilsjesdrinker' in Belgium. Delivers exactly what it promises: an old-fashioned, humble and straightforward 'ambachtelijk pilsje', of a kind popping up in Belgium more and more often in recent years (see Zenne Pils, the Pils 13 iterations, Troef, Papy Vandepils and so on).