Thank you for sharing tderock + kraddel! Sampled @ Bruges Beer Festival 2017. Black, creamy tanned head. Nose is mocha, cacao, instant chocolate milk, instant coffee, lightly metallic with some vanilla. Taste is cacao, mocha, bit thin with lots of vanilla, more than you would expect, possible lactose maybe?, lightly metallic, instant coffee. Body is bit thin, chocolate syrup, instant coffee. Not as good as these kinds of beers can be, bit thin, metallic, more instant coffee than sweet coffee etc. but pleasant to drink & definitely far better than expected.

The newest creation (after many months of experimenting) in Rudy Vossen’s Bierboom series, a beer with international ambitions, brewed with six malt types and two hop varieties. Thick and frothy, pale beige, densely moussy head over a very dark burgundy-hued bronze colour, blackish in general appearance. Interesting bouquet of liquorish, dried banana, sweet sherry, fig, butterscotch, marzipan, ’macarons’, cappuccino, old cloth, dry earth, mocha, cooked salsify, hazelnuts, peach. Sweet onset but not cloying, hints of fig and banana, very light ’meaty’ umami touch with a sourish elderberry undercurrent, strongish carbo (a bit much for this style actually), soft and ’fluffy’ caramelly and toasted malt bittersweetness with a bitter chocolate-coloured finish, pleasant and unexpected coconut and marzipan-like aromas retronasally, some earthy hop bitterness and whisky-like, warming alcohol. Nice and aromatic (clearly flavored with something extra), full-bodied, balanced but a bit overcarbonated and perhaps lacking a bit in the thick, syrupy, chocolatey malt sweetness I tend to expect from anything labelled an ’imperial porter’ - in that sense a kind of compromise between porter and quadrupel, but in any case an enjoyable beer, clearly more interesting and ambitious than the existing beers in this range. Nice one Rudy!

33cl bottle from De Caigny. Thick creamy almost tan head. Clear deep burgundy pour. A bit herbal. A decent winter beer

Pour clear, very dark caramelly brown. Small white head. Smell is somewhat sweet, some caramel. taste is sharp, rather bitter, dark malts, caramelly. Bit sweet. OK, rather common taste, but nothing off or not good.

33cl bottle shared with kermis. Thin white head. Very hazy light amber pour. Easy drinking.

Bottle shared with and courtesy of an on-heat platypus on an Artic Den Haag winter’s eve. Hazy dark golden with a small off white head. Aroma of wheat, light toffee, malt, yeast and light fruit. Flavour is moderate sweet and bitter. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.

F: huge, off-white, good retention. C: murky amber, hazy with yeasty debris. A: malt, spicy, orange peels, candy sugar, yeast, caramel, floral. T: malt, caramel, peach, floral, candy sugar, hint of orange, herbal, hint of bread, quite sweet but good balanced and tasty, enjoyed, 0,33l bottle from Spar supermarket in Oostende.

Bottle from Wijnegemse Drankenhal. Initially thick and frothy, densely moussy, thinly lacing, off-white head, eventually reduced to a medium sized veil and firm rim over a deep orange-tinged, translucent dark bronze-amber coloured beer, lightly hazy, notably more pale than usual for the style, cloudy with sediment. Wealthy aroma of peach, meringue, brown rum, butterscotch, honey liqueur, candied banana, powder sugar, yellow raisin, marzipan, white chocolate, biscuit, whisky, apricot, sweet dessert wine, apple cake, dry earth, white port wine, ginger, marmelade. Candied sweet onset, honeyish with dried fruit impressions of yellow raisin, banana and candied orange, some soft and ’dim’ redcurrant sourishness on the edges, minerally touches here and there. Quite spritzy carbonation - more so than usual for a quad - coarsens an otherwise slick, vinous, somewhat oily and thick mouthfeel, built from a thoroughly caramelly, slightly biscuity malt sweetness with a lot of residual white candi sugar sweetness on top; dries in the finish due to a subtle toasted accent, spicy and herbal (nearly tea-ish) hop bitterness and, unsurprisingly, quite a lot of heating, peppery, Grand Marnier- or rum-like alcohol, balancing on the edge of astringency but in all not too obtrusive. Alcoholic, very sweet but rich and interesting sipper, decent like most other beers in this range, technically correct and pleasantly aromatic. Quite a lovely beer, but more a (Belgian) barleywine than a true quadrupel in looks and flavor. I assume La Trappe Quadrupel - the first beer to use the term ’quadrupel’, as recently as the early nineties - served as an example here, but I have to admit that I expected something darker and more robust, along the lines of Rochefort 10, blue Chimay or Westy 12. Unexpected but nice surprise, doubtlessly with great ageing potential.