Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Bottle from Willems, Grobbendonk. Hazy dark amber/brown colour, beige foam. Sweet nose of caramel, unripe plums, raisins, a hint of vanilla, whisky. Taste is sweet, fruity, malty, light tart. Ok dubbel.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
33cl on-tap in The Red Rose Cafe, Brugge on 14th May 2018. Clear golden pour, smooth white blanket of foam on top. Light malty lead in both the aroma and taste, mild fruity notes within the semi-sweet, semi-bitter flavour. Easy drinking Blond that will not set your senses racing.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Fles thuis geprobeerd met LiekevdV. Het is een wat troebel goudgeel bier met een volle witte schuimkraag. Het heeft een wat wijnachtige geur. De smaak is vol, moutig, eiken en wat wijnachtig.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Hazy light brown colour with thin head. Aroma has lots of sweet caramel and vanilla. Flavour is similarly sweet and rich. Texture is slightly too thin and carbonation slightly too high. Otherwise this would be excellent.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
Sampled @ Zythos Bier Festival 2018. A slightly hazy golden beer with a small white head. Aroma of soft tart yellow fruits, brett. Taste of tart fruits, grapes, brett, nice.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Fles gedeeld met LiekevdV. Het is een donker bruin bier met een beige schuimkraag. Het heeft een moutige wat zoete geur. De smaak is vol, gebrand mout, caramel en koffie.
Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Fles thuis geprobeerd met LiekevdV. Het is een troebel geel bier met een volle witte schuimkraag. Het heeft een moutige geur. De smaak is moutig, beetje hoppig en wat gist in de nasmaak.
Alengrin (11675) reviewed Tungri Winter from Amburon Belgian Craftbrewery 7 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Classically conceived Belgian Christmas ale, called "winter" for commercial reasons like several others - extending the period in which money can be made out of it. Bottle from Geers in Oostakker near Ghent. Creamy, quite dense, yellowish pale beige, fairly stable head lacing in irregular 'streaks' over an initially clear, dark burgundy brown beer with ruby red hue when held under bright light, turning more 'murky' with sediment. Aroma of caramel candy, gravy, damp earth, liquorice candy, coriander seed, dried dates, fried banana slices, wet toast, old dried rosemary, raisins, muesli, cooked brown beans, young 'jenever'. Sweetish and sourish onset, less sweet than expected actually, hinting at old raisins, fresh fig, vague banana and a dash of pear, followed by a brief and superficial gravy-like umami touch - unsurprising seen its presence in the nose, yet way less strong than expected for the same reason. Fizzy carbonation, a bit too enthusiastic perhaps for a Belgian Christmas ale really, impairing a slick mouthfeel which appears less full than what you'd expect from a beer of this strength. Rounded caramelly malt base, with light brown bread- and eventually bitterish toasted edges, adorned with coriander sweet-spicy soapiness and a classic, yet not overpowering liquorice-like flavour; the toasty aspect is highlighted by a late but effective, bit leafy hop bitterness, but it is still the caramelly-toasty malt bittersweet combo that gets the last word, drenched in a warming yet not overly wry, 'jenever'-coloured alcohol effect. Some coriander spiciness lingers, not unpleasantly so. Traditional Belgian Christm... pardon, winter beer, like so many of them following the old Gordon X-Mas standard and thus indebted to the Scotch ale ('wee heavy') style in its old Belgian guise. Spiced, clearly, but not to the point where it becomes a caricature; sweet, but perfectly balanced by toasted malt bitterness; and boozy, but not in an obtrusive way. Very correct and technically well-made, only thing bothering me a bit here are those gravy- and wet earth-like aspects in the nose, which distract a bit from the basic structure of the beer. Adds absolutely nothing to the bunch of classic Belgian Christmas and winter ales, though, so I guess its relevance is situated at a regional level - nothing wrong with that. Typical Tungri: well-executed, but a bit lacking in depth and audacity. Still enjoyed it, though, even if Belgium is enjoying an exceptionally warm spring night tonight rather than the chilly winter evenings this type of beer is stereotypically intended for...
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 3
Well-carbonated clear ruby to cyclamen beer under a towering, stable, pale pink head. Faint fruity/berry nose, sweetish. Huge head hampers perception. Not overly sweet, but the perception is definitely artificial - not difficult with the acesulfame. Even the faint fruitacidity is not entirely convincing. Still, none of the flavours comes over as foul, just - not convincing. Fizzy, bit slick, light to medium bodied. The label mentions BOTH "no colourants or flavourings added" AND "sweetener: acetame K". Wie fopt er Frederik, denkt-ie? 5/4/6/3/5
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4.5
'Limburgian' blueberry ale commissioned by Streekmarkt.be, a local shop (also webshop) selling regional products; I have a suspicion that the blueberry juice used here comes from the Schrijnwerkers family in Meeuwen-Gruitrode, who also provides the blueberries for the Toëtelèr blueberry ales I tasted a couple of years ago at Wieze Bierfestival and which are effectively commissioned by Schrijnwerkers themselves, but this one is lower in ABV, only uses juice and is sweetened with acesulfame-K, an artificial sweetener two hundred times more sweetening than sugar - looks like I'm in for a ride here... Intricately and thickly 'papery' lacing, vaguely pinkish-tinged off-white, moussy and frothy, thick head eventually thinning and slowly opening in the middle over a cristal clear, beautifully and purely copper-hued red beer with visible sparkling, hazy with sediment. Aroma of blueberry juice indeed, quite a lot of manure (H2S) and cloggy farmland earth which just won't go away completely, soggy old bread, sugared rhubarb, beef broth, red candy, lilac blossoms in spring, egg yolk, blackberry jam, wet dog, cassis, chewing gum, background hints of caramel, damp tree leaves, soap, ketchup, tea bags and banana. Evidently fruity onset, lots of blueberry juice including this fruit's sweetness, sourness and herbal spiciness, with banana- and pear-like esters buried underneath; the sweetness and the sourness are present in more or less equal strength, with the first cloying to the teeth a bit - obviously aided by that acesulfame - and the latter effectuating a superficially dryish effect, with both factors struggling for attention. Fizzy, bit minerally carb, supple and lean, slick and soapy mouthfeel; caramelly and lightly bready maltiness underlies an ongoing sweet-and-sour blueberry juice flavour which gets all the credits here. The battle is solved in the finish, where cloying sweetness persists more strongly than any leftover fruit acidity; breadiness lingers, with chewing gum-like 'Belgian' estery effects, a hint of 'retronasal wet dog' (I guess you need to be a beer geek to comprehend this combination of words) and an only very faint, superficial, somewhat earthy hop bitterish accent that goes lost into the whole. Sweetness lingers and unpleasantly sticks to the teeth, but the sourness continues as well, so that the finish is less horribly sweet than I was fearing, even though it is still way too sticky sweet for me. Spicy notes too, probably of a phenolic nature. Comparable with the Toëtelèr blueberry ales made for the blueberry farmer in Meeuwen-Gruitrode, a simple yet 'artisanal' Belgian fruit ale, but ruined by the addition of that artificial sweetener - no matter if it can technically replace sugar or not, a full-fledged unsweetened version of this beer would certainly have been a much better option. The basic beer is clearly a simple, somewhat soapy Belgian ale, massively buried under a heavy load of not just blueberry juice, but acesulfame sweetness as well, which should have been omitted. Too sweet and old-fashioned for me even if, admittedly, the choice of fruit is everything but old-fashioned in Belgian context, and not free of manure-like, off-putting off-flavours either. Could have been so much better if only the basic beer were better bodied and the pseudo-sugary but annoyingly sweet acesulfame had been left out!