6.9/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 7
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 6.5
Verhuisbrouwerij’s latest creation, a ’massieve ale’ aged on whisky-soaked oak chips, from a 75 cl bottle with crown cap. Very moussy and dense, cream white, membranous lacing head over a dark but translucently bronze beer with mahogany brown hue. Aroma of toffee, stewed pear, damp tree leaves, wet dog, water-diluted cocoa, banana, earth, wet wood, peach, candied fig, melting brown sugar, black tea, whisky - but the latter in a generic alcohol sense from the beer itself, much more so than from the actual whisky effect, which is all but unnoticeable. Sweet flavour with a lot of residual candi sugar, pear, blue plum, banana fruitiness, sourish brambleberry-like undercurrent, soft carbo, full and very ’fluffy’ mouthfeel. Nutty and caramelly malt sweet middle with a wheaty sourishness to it, a bit ’woody’ and vaguely chocolatey as well, leading to a powdery yeasty-bready finish with an earthy hop bitter touch to it, as well as some tannic wood, drying and even a little bit vinous, followed by warming alcohol - whisky-ish, but again in a very vague and generic way, without actual whisky taste; the candi sugary sweetness lingers through this all and thus remains the dominant factor. Seeing some of the other reviews below, I can only conclude that this is either another batch, or it has significantly improved with over half a year of aging on it, because the beer coming out of my bottle is relatively well-balanced and well-executed, albeit a bit too sweet for my tooth.
Tried
from Bottle
on 18 Aug 2017
at 20:05