Bottle pour at Zwanze Day 2026, at The Sovereign in Washington DC. Poured a orangey-brownish color with a small white head. This bottle was over a decade old, and while it was showing signs of aging, it held up pretty well! Fruit is all but gone, some nice woody yeasty notes that stuck around.

750 ml bottle. Pours a hazy amber with lots of carbonation and a moderate head. Aromas of wood, bread, some metallics, dried stoned fruit, and toasted malts. Flavors of dried stoned fruit, vinous wood in a white wine sort of way, a little farmyard with maybe some brett, some soft tart grape skins, and wheaty malts. Interesting, but definitely more farmyard than Dulle Teve.

Next to the already obscure Dulle Teve Kriek, there have apparently been a few other fruit versions which, if anything, are even less exposed, as only a few dozen bottles of each were made and none of those ever left the brewery; this raspberry version, for instance, has only been sold at the brewery's Oerbar. This rating concerns one of the last bottles so if you still want to have a taste, I would not recommend waiting for too long. Thick, egg-white, slowly breaking, shred-lacing head over a hazy warm orangey blonde beer with apricot glow. Aroma of indeed perfumey yellow raspberries, dried orange peel, brioche, apricot, moist white pepper, calvados, damp earth, mandarin, green apple. Very fruity onset, the beer's own natural esteriness mingled with a very recognisable raspberry flavour, in this case in an aromatic and jam-like sweet way (and oddly lacking that sour tomato-ish flavour I get in beers made with whole raspberries), next to ripe pear, apricot and a touch of melon; minerally carb, supple and somewhat vinous body. Soft bready core under this perfumey raspberry effect - but only very light tartness so I suspect only juice or even essence has been used; herbal and hop bitter notes in the end, along with red apple and apricot impressions and warming, brandy-like alcohol: this is very much Dulle Teve alright, just adorned with an extra layer of remarkably perfumey raspberry which you can either love or hate, I suppose... There seems to have been a strawberry version too, I must remember that next time I make it to the brewery.

This springtime, the Dolle Brouwers will release not one, but two new Reserva editions of Dulle Teve: an Amarone barrel aged one brewed in 2024 and bottled in 33 cl Vichy bottles (like the Priorat from 2022), and this Pinot Auxerrois barrel aged one, brewed early last year and bottled in 75 cl bottles (like the Trousseau du Jura from 2024). Thanks to Kürt for bringing this to my attention - and bringing it up during a visit to the brewery's Oerbar, where we were treated to an avant-première of both versions. The reviewed sample came from the very first bottle that received a label. Membrane-lacing, off-white, somewhat rocky head over a hazy ochre-tinged golden beer, turning a bit cloudy in the end - but bizarrely paler in hue than regular Dulle Teve, which is an effect the brewer ascribed to the white wine barrel treatment (the first time ever I heard such a thing - making me wonder whether the basic recipe of the beer has perhaps been adjusted here...). Aroma was not very Dulle Teve-like either, with notes of bread crust, dried peach, straw, moist white pepper, black radish, grape skins, wood, minerals, dry white vermouth rather than Pinot wine, green apple, mugwort, dry earth, clove. 'Yellow-green', somewhat restrained fruitiness (oddly) of green apple, hard pear, unripe peach and perhaps vague apricot, minerally in carbonation with supple, full body; cereally, pale-malty core lacking the light biscuitiness I usually get from Dulle Teve and its offspring, but with indeed a light and brief white wine effect in the middle, including a sweet grapey fruitiness and drying tannins, also from wood. Picks up a tad more sweet fruitiness (peach) in the finish, meeting with a leafy hop bitter note and warming gin-like alcohol, apart from phenolic and herbal accents. The wine element remains relatively subtle here, though noticeable in the middle, which can be explained by the fact that Pinot Auxerrois tends to yield light-bodied, elegant yet delicate, easygoing wines - but what shook me the most here is that the basic beer does not resemble the Dulle Teve I know and love, in being paler, less fruity and drier; whether or not this is due to the wine barrels in which it has lived for the past year, remains an open question to me, but then I wonder why this effect is absent in other variants... The crown cap unambiguously showed Pinot Auxerrois so I have no reason to assume I got a bottle with the wrong content, but this is in any case something I will remain curious about - I will keep a close watch on future ratings of this edition, and perhaps try to obtain another bottle once it is officially released.