nathanvc (7053) reviewed Q from Innova Brewery 1 year ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottle via Frank & Els - many thanks!
A: clear amber, quickly thinning, tan head.
A: red apple, dried fig, prune, caramel, carré confiture.
T: sweet fig & red apple, sourish prune, jam, caramel.
F: herbal hops, dried fruit, warming liqueur-like alcohol.
P: medium body, slick texture, fizzy carbonation.
Bit rudimentary, but still fun.
tderoeck (22946) reviewed Blackwell from Innova Brewery 6 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
1/II/20 - 33cl bottle @ nieuwjaarsreceptie Gentse Biervereniging, BB: n/a (2020-89) Thanks to everyone for sharing all today’s beers!
Clear dark brown beer, aery irregular off-white head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: very nice malts, good roast, quite some chocolate, mocha, bit of coffee, some vanilla, grains. MF: soft carbon, medium body. Taste: sourish start, surprisingly some blackberries in the mix, nice roast, some alcohol, chocolate notes. Aftertaste: slightly acidic, soft roast, alcohol, fruity, more of them blackberries.
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
1/II/20 - 33cl bottle @ nieuwjaarsreceptie Gentse Biervereniging, BB: n/a (2020-86) Thanks to everyone for sharing all today’s beers!
Pretty cloudy yellow beige beer, practically no head. Aroma: sweet, lots of overripe banana, sugary, hint of vanilla, alcohol, caramel. MF: ok carbon, full body. Taste: sweet start, fruity, banana, pretty sugary, sweet, malty, some caramel, very yeasty. Aftertaste: sweet and sugary, overripe banana, very Belgian, pretty boring…
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
28 April 2019. At Zythos Bierfestival. Cheers to Anke, 77ships & tderoeck! Hazy black, lasting, very thin, frothy, tan head. Aroma of licorice, molasses, burnt caramel, raisin, green tea, Coca-Cola. Taste is medium to heavy malty sweet, notes of caramel, licorice & ‘Ersatz’ chocolate, toned down by herbal bitter hints of dried tea, mocha, faint toast, sourish edge of dark fruits, already quite boozy with a weird Cola effect. Dryish, herbal hoppy finish, lingering licorice & caramel, warming rum-like alcohol. Medium body, slick-syrupy texture, fizzy carbonation. Would have guessed it’s something of a Scotch but even then, quite messy.
tderoeck (22946) reviewed Whitney from Innova Brewery 6 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
Imported from my RateBeer account as Innova Whitney (by Innova Brewery):
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 3/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 11/20, MyTotalScore: 3/5
28/IV/19 - sample @ Zythos Bierfestival 2019 (Leuven), BB: n/a - (2019-650) Thanks to nathanvc, 77ships & Anke for sharing today's beers!
Clear black beer, small beige head, practically no head. Aroma: nice roast, some dark chocolate, coffee, caramel touch. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: sweet start, bit sugary, ripe banana, soft roast, more banana. Aftertaste: sweet and sugary, more ripe to overripe banana, soft roast, way too much Belgian yeast for a proper stout.
tderoeck (22946) reviewed Nova from Innova Brewery 6 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4.5
Imported from my RateBeer account as Innova Nova (by Innova Brewery):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 9/20, MyTotalScore: 2.7/5
28/IV/19 - sample @ Zythos Bierfestival 2019 (Leuven), BB: n/a - (2019-649) Thanks to nathanvc, 77ships & Anke for sharing today's beers!
Clear blond to gold beer, big fizzy aery white head, bit stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: banana, cloves, spicy, yeast, weird, by no means is this a NEIPA. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: sweet and malty start, some caramel, soft bitterness, red liquorice. Aftertaste: little bitter, sweet malts, caramel, bit resinous, lots of overripe banana. Piss poor excuse for a NEIPA… Also pretty lame of the brewery to make an account and rate all of their own beers 4+. Shame, double shame on you!
mike_77 (15880) reviewed Blackwell from Innova Brewery 6 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
Black with no head. Aroma has some sweet caramel notes. Flavour starts grassy, then geys a brown sugat sweetness and finishes with a lot of heavy alcohol warmth.
Alengrin (11675) reviewed Blackwell from Innova Brewery 7 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
The bourbon barrel aged version of Whitney and Innova's fourth beer to date, again from a steinie bottle with glossy label that combines dark letter with a dark background, making it difficult to read for me - so let's get straight to the beer then. Thick and frothy, pale beige, very regular head, hardly lacing and thinning quickly, opening in instants; very dark chocolate brown robe with blackish appearance but still largely translucent especially around the edges, with a glowing ruby red hue, initially as good as clear, misty with sediment. Aroma of a lot of melting Ersatz chocolate, some chocolate milk as well, damp earth and initially even manure, caramel sauce, raisin bread, red apple, banana and even light bubblegum, cane sugar, treacle, wet wooden barrel indeed but not overly prominent (could be more outspoken and more colourful), sweet and boozy bourbon but again not as outspoken and clear as in most other modern BBA beers, hazelnut liqueur, background accents of wet clay, cloves, liquorish, 'Haagse hopjes' or coffee cream, roses. Sweet onset, lots of residual dark sugars, banana ester with light bubblegum effect, hints of candied fig, ripe pear and blue plum, light sourish undertone, medium carbonation. Full, rounded, very slick mouthfeel, yet not as oily as it ought to be, very caramelly and lightly sweet-chocolatey middle, lingering bubblegum note, remaining very sweet with a hazelnutty side. Light underlying sourishness continues well into the finish but so does the residual sweetness, with roasted bitterness lacking too much to qualify as a stout - as is, evidently, the case in the basic Whitney beer as well. Alcohol becomes very prominent in the final stage, heating but not explicitly bourbon-coloured, with a light tannic woody effect as well, but again remaining very restrained. The overall sugary sweetness wins, with only a 'deep', brief and earthy hop bitterish touch in the end, insufficient to balance this sweetness; very bready and lightly phenolic yeast effects are clear enough as well. The sugary sweetness sticks to the teeth long after swallowing (not unlike e.g. Kasteelbier or something alike). Since this is Whitney with a bourbon barrel as the extra ingredient, it is self-evident that this one too lacks roasted bitterness and 'cleanness' to qualify as a stout of any kind - like Whitney, this is much closer to an old school Scotch, with the barrel effect remaining too subtle to truly change the beer for the better (ignoring the fact that putting a mediocre beer in a wooden barrel does not make it better by definition either, of course). Not a bad beer per se, a (very) sweet and warming sipper, just not the kind of beverage I expect when I think of 'bourbon barrel aged imperial stout'. Too many of these new self-proclaimed craft brewers in Belgium are trying to be hip without understanding the ins and outs of IPA, stout and other non-native styles, I'm afraid.
Alengrin (11675) reviewed Nova from Innova Brewery 7 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
One of the four beers Innova launched itself onto the craft beer market with not long ago, an attempt at New England IPA, using wheat malt and dry-hopped with Summit, with additional Cascade, Centennial and Styrian Goldings hops - not the most appropriate choice of hop varieties for the intended style if you ask me, but anyway. Strong pressure on the bottle, but no gushing. Initially very frothy, thick, beaten egg-like, pale yellowish white, audibly crackling head, eventually thinning dramatically if not disappearing completely, on an immediately misty, warm golden-hued apricot blonde beer with strong visible sparkling rushing through the mist - and a suspension of tiny, translucent yeast bits everywhere. Aroma remarkably sweet, fruity and yeasty, with a very strong presence of ripe banana and indeed banana-flavoured bubblegum (isoamylacetate), next to candyfloss, ripe melon, apricot jam, red apple peel, sweet clementine, soggy sweetbread, fresh basil or even peppermint leaves, grass, phenolic hint of cloves, soap - the nose of a sweet, almost 'Dutch style' Hefeweizen, as my colleague below keenly observes, but nothing reminiscent of a true NEIPA. Same story in the mouth: very fruity, estery onset, very crisp with lively, finely but enthusiastically stinging, minerally carbonation (way too lively for style), very pronounced sweet and bubblegummy banana ester, notes of ripe peach, melon and canned pineapple with a dash of ripe pear thrown in, supple and fluffy body but without the creaminess and soft 'powderiness' I tend to expect from the style, sweetbready and doughy malts with a certain wheaty soapiness to it, which only in the finishing stage receive a mildly peppery, herbal (basil!) and floral dosage of hoppiness, with a refined trail of bitterness piercing through the lingering banana ester and malt sweetness. In terms of retronasal aroma, I get only a fragile hint of sweet orange or clementine - and back in the mouth, a weird kind of spiciness develops, indeed very reminiscent of the old curaçao even though the label does not mention any spices. Phenolic, clove- and vaguely anise-like accents are noticeable as well. Even more unexpectedly, a touch of badly hidden, 'jenever'-ish alcohol makes a brief but unmistakable appearance in the tail as well. Well... where to begin? I did not expect this to be a successful NEIPA at all, to be honest (only very few Belgian brewers, Totem is one of them, have managed to succeed at that so far anyway), but this is as much a NEIPA as Orval is a milk stout. There is literally nothing NEIPA-like to this beer, so I am not even going to bother summing up the shortcomings in terms of 'truth to style' - see above for the details and interpret them accordingly, I would say... Weird little beer, indeed very Hefeweizen-like, with very likely a dash of witbier spicing thrown in; the hops sadly get lost in yeasty effects and maltiness, as is so often the case in Belgian attempts at whatever IPA substyle. I expect Summit to be oniony and grapefruity - yet there is no way anyone in a blind tasting can identify this glorious hop variety in this beer. Points off for pretending to be something it is not in the most remote way imaginable but that said, and judged completely independently of its style intentions, this is fairly enjoyable (if too sweet for me) and I'm sure it can achieve local popularity to some degree. But be fair to the craft beer community as well, guys, and remove all IPA associations from the label please.
Alengrin (11675) reviewed Whitney from Innova Brewery 7 years ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 6.5
The attempted imperial stout in this new Innova series, steinie bottle from the brewery - as usual with difficult to read label, at least to my aging eyes. Slow gusher, but manageable if handled with the necessary attention. Very thick and frothy 'Belgian' head, pillowy, highly stable, yellowish pale beige in colour, very thickly 'plastery' lacing; cloudy, very dark chestnut brown robe, as good as black and nearly opaque, with a plaque of fungus-looking pale yeast resting on the bottom of the glass even with careful pouring - not a very attractive sight. Aroma of caramel, Ersatz chocolate ('koetjesreep'), blueberry jam, candied cherries, Liège pear syrup, cola initially even including the 'prickling' effect of carbon dioxide, soaking wet brown bread, brownies, candied figs, freshly cut red apples, hints of cinnamon, elderberry syrup, cassis, sugared tea, coffee grounds, damp tree leaves. Sweetish onset, candied fig, raisins, with a more crisp and sourish edge of freshly cut apple and blueberries, medium carbonated; smooth mouthfeel, very lean with slick edges but - surprisingly considering ABV - feeling quite light-bodied especially considering the intended style; caramelly-toffeeish and 'Ersatz-chocolatey' maltiness with a very nutty basic character, in a sweetish, pecan nut-like way and a light metallic 'zing' somewhere. Some roasty bitterishness does show up in the end, aided by an earthy hop bitterishness. Ends dry-sticky and earthy, with mildly phenolic spicy notes, a lingering 'deep' (typically stout-) sourishness as well as some basic malt sweetishness, and quite some bready yeasty aspects. Alcohol adds a certain warmth in the end, but generally remains well hidden; the general effect of the finish is however clearly too thin for what it intends to be. Drinkable enough for a Belgian style imperial stout of sorts, the likes of which we've seen more and more often here in recent years under international influence: too bready, not 'thick', dense and oily enough and, most importantly, not clean enough, as this beer is clearly teeming with yeasty effects that have no business in a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon beer style like imperial stout. Needs a lot of finetuning and considerably more density to get there, but there is a faint core of promise in here somewhere. In its current form, though, this is not an imperial stout: in fact, this is much closer to a Scotch ale as interpreted by the Belgians in the 20th century - and still today.