Tom (2085) ticked Rum-Oaked from Bierfirma Ultima 4 years ago
Tom (2085) ticked Dry Hopped Exotic Tripel from Bierfirma Ultima 4 years ago
MarcoDL (7854) reviewed Rum-Oaked from Bierfirma Ultima 5 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottle. Dark brown pour. Aroma of caramelised malt, raisin, rum booze, dates, chocolate, licorice and vanilla. Taste has boozy rum, caramelised malt, dates, figs, raisin, vanilla, yeast, chocolate, some oak and a boozy finish. Beer is a bit thin. Tastes like some rum is blended in, it's quite simple and unrefined. Not bad, but also not very good.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Bottle @ home. Hazy, yellow colour, white foam. Lots of carbonation. Citrussy, grassy, some sweet malts, orange peel. Taste is rather grassy, some bitterness. Ok.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed Dry Hopped Exotic Tripel from Bierfirma Ultima 5 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Dry-hopped tripel (though sadly the label mentions no hop variety) flavoured with orange peel; bottle bought online somewhere. Mousy, irregularly shaped, snow white, breaking head but largely stable on the edge and in the form of flat islands in the middle; initially clear, warm orange-hued peach-golden robe with enthusiastic fizz rising up from the middle, misty with sediment. Quite distinct aroma of indeed strong bitter orange pith, green peppercorns, banana peel, dried apricot, dry straw, hints of bitter honey, cooked fennel, gin, minerals, old cotton cloth. Sweetish, bit 'juicy' onset, orange peel 'fraîcheur' indeed but also its bitterness, playing with more restrained fruity notes of peach, red apple and pineapple; fizzy carbonation, smooth body, but feeling a tad thinner than its ABV would suggest. Clean cereally and bit caramelly maltiness, slightly oxidized already, bitter orange peel strongly present to even rather dominant in the end, but some margin is left for floral and seemingly citric hoppiness as well, though it is hard to determine how citric the hops are with some much actual citrus around. Gin-like, eventually slightly wry alcohol further accentuates the bitterness; some traces of subtle bready yeastiness linger around amidst this long and bitter, but partially malt-sweetish finish. Quite a characterful one, this 'exotic tripel', a bit rough on the edges perhaps, but the combo of hop bitterness and citrus peel bitterness works fine here - with a near-IPA-like effect. Old school Belgian 'edelbier' with a modern 'craft' twist, in a sense. Expected worse, to be frank...
Alengrin (11609) reviewed Rum-Oaked from Bierfirma Ultima 5 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Strong dark beer from this Limburgian 'bierfirma', aged on oak chips soaked in Belgian-made rum. Yellowish beige, densely small-bubbled and creamy, medium thick head, leaving only sparse lacing and showing gaps quickly, remaining for a while as a thin layer of cream, but eventually disappearing completely; initially clear, very dark bronze-brown beer (almost blackish in general appearance) with glowing ruby red hue, turning even darker (and hazy - but also as good as 'headless') in the end. Aroma of toffee, cold caramel sauce, brown sugar, crumbled cookies, candied plums, brown rum, tawny port, cinnamon sprinkled over fried apples, ripe blackberries, homemade cola, Belgian chocolates, candied banana, yellow raisin, treacle, fainter hints of 'oaky' vanilla, dry tea bags, sweat and very vague and volatile background hints of plastic and rusty iron. Sweet onset, a layer of treacle covering underlying fruitiness of banana, fig and pear but in a cleanish, quite focused way, with a very light sourish undertone and medium carbonation; full, even somewhat syrupy mouthfeel, with some of that dark sugar sweetness sticking a bit to the teeth. Thick toffeeish malt body, very caramelly but with a slight bitter-chocolatey touch to it as well, remaining sweet and straightforward, quickly warmed up by indeed rum-like alcohol, while a subtle whiff of vanilla betrays the presence of oak, albeit in a volatile, superficial manner - I get none of the woody tannins that would have been so welcoming here against the sweetness. More warming alcohol from the beer itself is added, port-like and 'palpably' going down the chest without becoming annoyingly harsh or wry. Quite some lingering 'black sugary' sweetness, with only the faintest hint of herbal hop bitterishness and a slight bubblegummy effect, next to a brown-bready malt core that stretches out deep into the finish; hardly any yeast effects here, which I know should not be there in a barleywine (because that is apparently the style intended by the brewer), but which could perhaps have brought some structural variation and depth. Feels very clean, (too) polished and 'fabricated', almost industrially so, like e.g. Wilderen's Cuvée Clarisse (Wild Weasel version - also Limburgian, by the way, and I suspect that this is not a coincidence); clearly intended aimed at a reasonable degree of accessibility. Technically well-brewed, very smooth, but perhaps a bit too smooth; this needs more 'relief' and profiling, e.g. by toning down on the sweetness and using a more 'layered' malt bill. As for 'barleywine': this feels (and tastes and looks) much more like a quadrupel, really, apart from that remarkable yeast cleanness; I can - somewhat reluctantly - accept a 'dark barleywine' concept, but this one, in all, remains more of a quad to me. Correct, enjoyable, carrying an interesting twist, but a bit monochromous for a beer at this level of strength and potency. Less sweetness, less dark candi sugar and the use of actual barrels instead of those ridiculous liquor-soaked wood chips should be the decisions to make here.
DirDec (2083) ticked De Soldaat Blond from Bierfirma Ultima 8 years ago