mike_77 (15875) reviewed All Hail Krampus from Brouwerij Hoppug 3 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Zythos 2022. Very dark brown colour. Aroma and flavour are a battle between tasty, chocolatey malts and tonka. Too much tonka.
mike_77 (15875) reviewed Zwet en Zuur from Brouwerij Hoppug 3 years ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Zythos 2022. Very dark brown with no head. As expected there's a light roasted bitter malt flavour up against a tangy sourness. Decent.
nathanvc (6963) reviewed Zjatteke Kaffe from Brouwerij Hoppug 3 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
23 March 2022. 'Get Rid of Polish Beers Tasting' - thanks for sharing, Ama!
Cloudy black, thin, beige head. Aroma of cold coffee, coffee bean, chicory, earth, walnut, toast. Taste has restrainedly sweet prune & sourish brambleberry; lots of coffee, toast, brown bread & chocolate powder making up the malt profile. Earthy hoppy finish with espresso, toast & tobacco, softly warming coffee liqueur-like alcohol. Medium body, oily texture, soft carbonation. Pretty decent stuff but needs more body.
beerhunter111 (50581) reviewed Free Bird Milk Stout from Brouwerij Hoppug 3 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
33cl bottle. A clear dark orange brown beer with a big tan head. Aroma of melasse, sweet dark malt, lactose, chocolate. Taste of sweet dark chocolate malt, caramel, lactose, melasse. High carbonation.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Bottle. Darker coppery brown, solid and not too lasting tan coloured head. Caramel, biscuity, nuts and hints of chocolate, slight wood. Medium sweetness, syrupy feeling, biscuits mostly. Medium bitterness, slight herbal tartness. Lasting and not too strong aftertaste. Quite later on some alcohol warmth, getting more noticeable. Medium body. I quite like this one.
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
Scotch (or indeed, as it was originally called, 'wee heavy') by Hoppug, aged for four months on French brandy barrels; too bad the brand remains undisclosed, but given the generic description 'French brandy', I assume it was neither cognac nor armagnac which inhabited the original barrels... Anyway: thick, foamy, crackling, pale yellowish beige, uneven-bubbled but tight and pillowy head on an initially clear, dark chocolate brown beer with burgundy glow, turning misty with sediment. Aroma of wet caramel candy, soggy brown bread, prunes, wet oak wood and a bit of its associate vanilla, old raisins, earth, brandy indeed but not too obtrusive, unsugared chewing gum, varnish, old pecan nuts, dried thyme, coriander seed, damp forest floor, dried porcini, mud, plaster. Sweetish, fruity onset, lively carbonated (a bit much so for the style even), hints of pear, some banana and fresh fig, vague sourish undertone, rounded and bit resinous mouthfeel thinned by alcohol; brown-bready, caramelly and slightly walnutty maltiness, sweetish but sleek with a toasty bitter edge as is custom for the style, the bitterness accentuated by leafy hops and - even more so - a good dose of the brandy, more so than expected based on the orthonasal aromas. The brandy heats and thins the finish, balancing on the brink of off-putting wryness but softened by both an underlying woodiness and dense brown-bready maltiness; spicy notes unfold at the same time, coriander powder-, clove- and thyme-like, but without becoming all Christmas-y and over the top. Ends bready, warmingly boozy, 'Belgian-spicy' and dark-malty. The earthy effects are generally strong here, a bit too much so for me as a typical Scotch needs a cleaner profile and this way, it intersects too much with the Belgian dubbel (or, in this case, quadrupel) idiom for me; that said, the toasty bitterish aspect of a Scotch is certainly there, as in many Belgian winter beers, historically often derived from Scotch so there is nothing freaky about that. The barrel ageing could haved been done better, the booze is present but does not burn away the basic flavour profile of the beer too much but there is a lot of disturbing solventy activity here still. Not Hoppug's most impressive creation so far for me, perhaps, but a pleasant and interesting 'sofa beer' nonetheless and it does deliver on its promise: this is indeed clearly a brandy barrel aged Scotch (the Belgian way), there is no arguing about that.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed Paint It Black from Brouwerij Hoppug 4 years ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
“Imperial milk stout” by this ‘Kempian’ brewer, shared with my girlfriend Goedele. Thick and foamy, creamy, yellowish beige, membrane-lacing, relatively stable head, black robe with hazy chestnut edges of less than a millimeter off the edge. Aroma of cold black coffee, milk powder, praliné filling, Nutroma coffee cream, soggy black toast, wet pipe tobacco, espresso powder, ‘Koetjesreep’, old chewing gum, white pepper, clove, ‘jenever’, tea, something ashy. Sweetish onset, quite ‘clean’ but still with red apple- and pear-like estery accents, softish carbonation, vague sourish undertone (elderberry); very full, rounded body, rather creamy due to the added lactose, adding silkiness and an actual milk powder flavour, quite pronounced and sweet, but with ‘milk-sourish’ edges. This effect lies heavily over a deeper structure of pecan nut paste-, sugarfree chocolate- and brownies dough-like malts, ending with quite firm, mouth-filling, coffee-like roastiness with vague ashy accents to it, providing balance against the lactose sweetness; so does a late but firm, earthy, spicy hop bitter note. Still, in the end the lactose flavour lingers and I know that ‘milk stout’ was the intention here, but somehow I think this stout as a whole would have worked much better without it – as a true imperial stout ‘tout court’. Maybe such a version exists, in which case I would love to try it…
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Lots of attributes I like, an imperial porter, barrel aging and a bourbon input, all positive to me. I have a 33 cl bottle ready to be tasted, it's opened and pouring into a snifter. Dark brown-black in color with a fair head of medium tan foam. A tolerable nose of chocolate, booze and some roastiness. The taste follows that, unfortunate or not as it stands. Ash and malt swallow anything else. A bit of chocolate and I cannot find the bourbon. Too heavy a hand with the roast, imo.
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Pours black (still some red shine) . Medium sized off-white head. Fairly stable, medium creamy. Scent is very mild. Some roastyness, some 'milky' aspects from the lactose. No clear barrel. Taste is surprisingly thin and sharp, even bitter. Somewhat ashy. PX barrel is completely lost (which is unfortunate) Not at all as sweet as you'd expect from a milkstout. I get a touch of acidity, not sure at this stage if it's from the roastyness of the malts ( which I do suppose) or an early stage of infection (no off aroma's like acetic acid though). Truth be told I expected a lot more, and different than this result.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
33cl bottle (8,5%) from Quali Drinks in Mechelen. F: medium, white, good retention. C: deep gold, light hazy. A: orange, tangerine, bit tropical fruits, spicy, bit caramel. T: full malty base, orange, grapefruits, spicy, mellow tropical fruits, nice harmonic bitterness, higher abv is well masked, medium carbonation, good hoppy Tripel almost like IIPA, fully enjoyed.