Bottle 0,33ltr: Dark brown colored brew with an fine sweet bitter taste, hints of chocolate, dried fruits and some vanilla. Very surprisingly good beer from Belgium.

Tap at Bonte Koe, Leiden: Clear red coloured brew with an acceptable sweet bitter taste with hints of caramel, sweet red fruits and lemon.

Bottle 0,33 ltr: Clear dark brownred colored brew with an bittersweet taste with some booziness. Hints of caramel, dried fruits and vanilla.

Clear dark brown colour with thin head. Aroma and flavour have boozy rum and sweet caramelised banana.

Dark rum-infused version of Wilderen's standard quadrupel Cuvée Clarisse, the rum having been produced - partially because it is apparently a blend - by Wilderen itself, which is not only a brewery but also a distillery (with a very 'commercial', mass-market approach, but that aside). Foamy, thick, even-bubbled, yellowish pale beige, irregularly but tightly lacing, pillowy head on a consistently clear (filtered!), dark mahogany brown robe with copper red glow. Aroma of indeed pronounced brown 'coconutty' rum but not the worst around, some solventy effects even (headache-inducing varnish), over dark candi sugar, caramel sauce, sirop de Liège, bubblegum, nougat, liquorice, plasticine, candied cherries, pecan, touch aniseed and - subtly but consistently hovering over it all - that unmistakable and unappealing 'cooked cloth' smell of pasteurisation. Sweet onset, clean and candi-sugary but thinly so, with some peardrop and candied cherry notes as well as a streak of ripe banana, turning a tad bubblegummy further on; lively carbonation, a bit too stingy perhaps for this genre, with smooth, slick mouthfeel, yet feeling somehow a tad 'empty' for its ABV - clearly part of the malt bill has been replaced by sugar syrup here. A superficial, overly sleek caramelliness is the result, with Belgian 'praline'-like aspects, but fairly little body or layeredness of malts; a clay- and nougat-like aspect heavily lies on top, heated by overly dominant, boozy, coconut- and molasses-like brown rum, scorching away whatever little 'real' flavours this construction had to begin with. A lightly herbal hop bitter note resides underneath, but the astringency caused by the rum remains the key element, as well as its very pronounced flavour. No one who has ever sipped any kind of rum in their life could be mistaken here: this is indeed rum-infused, as a cheap way of incorporating their own Omerta rum blend into their beer. I have always been skeptical about both liquor infusions in beer (this is just a lazy way to cash in on the barrel ageing hype without actually wanting to spend time and money on actual barrel ageing) and this whole brewery, which was set up clearly to aim at the lowest common denominator in alcohol consumption and make as much money out of it as possible. When making money - which is obviously fine by itself - begins to supersede the creation of truly good beers, or at least the intention to do so, then you know that it is time to veer away and seek more interesting breweries. I cannot sincerely recommend this one, it being filtered and pasteurized already being suspicious in the first place, but my weak spot for quadrupel in general prevents me from giving it the low score it actually deserves... But let there be no doubt: a stubborn headache is guaranteed after downing even only one of these.

#blond LCI

33 cl. bottle @ home, bought @ van Rooij, Culemborg. Brown with a beige head. Caramel aroma with rum. Sweet taste with a boozy rum finish. In fact too much rum is present, absolutely overpowering everything else.

Bottle at home, darker amber beer, small head. Aroma is dried fruit, caramel, sweet, alcohol, rum. Taste is the same, sweet, caramel, fruit, raisins, alcohol rum, warming mouthfeel, nice one.