Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 5 | Overall - 5
Pappig hefiger Beginn. Moderat herb, prickelnd, zunehmende Süße, halbwegs süffig. Konstant, mittellanger Abgang, gut trinkbar. 9/8/8/8/7/8
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Clear golden colour with lasting lacy head. Simple and well balanced Blond. Bready, malty taste with a light bitterness in the aftertaste.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottled@Tuulensuu, Tampere. Orangeish deep amber colour with a mediumsized foamy white foamy head, which leaves some lace. Aroma is toffee, bread, some mild yeasty and grainy tones with mild alcohol as well. Flavour is toffee, some spicy alcohol, mild dried fruits and some slight toasted tones.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9
Zwart bier met schuim. Smaak is bitterzoet en kruidig met iets van anijs, wat koffie, kruiden (Kardamon?), laurier en chocolade. Heeft een heel romig mondgevoel.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
Oranje goudkleurig bier met schuim. Smaak is bitterzoet met iets van gedroogd fruit, wat honing en wat bitter van de hop.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Black colour with thin head. Aroma very nice. Caramel, maple. Flavour a bit sweet and spicy. Cardamom?
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
25/VI/22 - 33cl bottle from Willems (Grobbendonk), shared @ home, BB: 9/X/23, L20200057 (2022-790)
Clear dark brown to black beer, huge creamy beige head, stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: a bit floral and soapy, caramel sweetness, raisins, dried fruits, some milk chocolate. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: bitter roast up front, some chocolate, a sweet touch, a bit weird, spicy, earthy, chocolate, soapy bitterness, some maple. Aftertaste: spicy, alcohol, earthy, bitter roast, coffee, a bit soapy, maple, a bit chemical, licorice, star anise, oxidized, meh. Not so good.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Murky amber colour, white foam disappears quickly. Lots of wood, red wine, some citrussy, light sweetness, vinous finish. Not bad.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
The Serafijn brand, created by hobby brewer Achilles Van de More in 1999, still survives to this day, albeit under another ownership and no longer as a microbrewery – the beers are currently brewed at Pirlot in the Kempen region, and that goes for this beer too, a strong stout flavoured with maple syrup. Very thick and foamy, dense, pillowy, pale mocha-tinged beige, cobweb-lacing, stable head on a black beer with thin copper-red, hazy edges. Aroma of coffee, burnt toast, bitter ‘fondant’ chocolate, ‘Babbelutten’, fudge, walnut paste, black pepper, old raisins, clove, bayleaf, pipe tobacco and indeed a sweet-resiny background whiff of maple syrup. Restrainedly sweetish onset, some dried prune and fig fruitiness, medium carbonated with rounded, slick, full mouthfeel; toasty malt profile, bittersweet but more bitter than sweet, toasted walnuts, burnt bread crust and chicory, evolving into full-fledged coffee roastiness paired with a leafy hop bitterness – and yet this maple syrup element manages to provide a sweet, spicy effect that counters the overall bitterness very well, in an elegant way, releasing additional aromas of almond, ‘pepernoot’ and clove. I enjoyed this one a lot: it is bold, very roasty, offering an ingredient the average Belgian consumer is hardly familiar with and using it in an intelligent, structurally efficient way; I doubt if the original microbrewery would ever have come up with something like this if it still existed, but in any case the Serafijn name is saved from oblivion if this is the path followed today.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 2 | Overall - 4.5
:Dark brown/black colour, lots of beige foam. Lots and lots of carbonation. Nose of coffee, chocolate, vanilla, grass, citrus, bitter hops. Very unbalanced and too much carbonation. I don't like it at all.