Idiosynkrasie (18028) reviewed La Maison du Dolo Rã nõodo from UMAO 6 years ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5
330ml bottle [Thanks to Aziz again!]. Cloudy amber colour, no head. Grainy, slightly muesli-like aroma, sweet-ish notes of sorghum, a touch of oat flakes, a fruity touch of dried berries as well, minimally doughy yeasty overtones. Taste is sweet, fruity, grainy, muesli character again, hints of yellow stone fruit, sorghum, a touch of oat flakes. Mushy-watery texture, smooth and soft palate, soft carbonation. Harmonious and balanced, not the worst non-alcoholic beer.
Alengrin (11675) reviewed Raam from UMAO 6 years ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5
Ever since I got interested in beer from an intellectual and historical perspective, I've been pondering about its origins, thousands of years ago, and what beer may have tasted like back then. Outside of the modern, western beer world, many ancient cultures around the world still keep (probably) equally ancient brewing traditions alive, the millet and sorghum beers of Africa being among those - and within those traditional African beers, the dolo (or djioula) from Burkina Faso is just one of many local variants. Dolo is normally house-brewed and not normally bottled, but I this Umao company is one attempt to catch its characteristics in a bottle, I assume to make it more accessible (and more easy to distribute) to a wider audience, an attempt I meet with enthusiasm, as the entire craft beer renaissance we see today is built on reviving, reinventing and hybridizing old beer traditions - and there is no reason these should be limited to Europe and its 'modern' beers. Made from sorgho (at least in this case - millet also being used and even more frequently so), unhopped and quickly fermented with a cross-generationally transferred yeast strain that (according to biochemical studies performed in past years) involves not just Saccharomyces cerevisiae but also (often) Lactobacillus and Pediococcus bacteria, dolo is usually drunk from calabash gourds and fulfils an important social role as an accompaniment to every aspect of daily life (such as births and marriages). This bottled one is the first in its kind I ever get to taste, so a special thanks goes to Ruben for bringing me a few samples straight from Burkina Faso. No head at all - just some loose and large, off-white air bubbles during pouring, quickly disappearing; cloudy, warm carrot orange-hued peach blonde robe. Fruity, very phenolic and grainy aroma of ripe pear, peach, medlar, banana, bread crumbs, old dry apple cake, touch lemon flesh but also - after 'breathing' for a while - very 'medicinal' phenolic aspects of iodine, band aid, incense and downright 'hospital'. Fruity onset, some maltose sweetness mixed with fruity esters and a sourish edge (probably established by Lactobacillus and / or Pediococcus) resulting in aspects of banana, yellow plum, nectarine and pear, none of which however becomes very distinctive; carbonation is (as expected from the style, of course) completely flat. Light-bodied, smooth middle phase filled by rather sweet, almost cake-like, rather pleasantly 'powdery' breadiness, alongside which that fruity-sourish lactic edge persists; the phenolic band aid aspect returns retronasally, while the finish maintains this bready and old apple cake crumb-like aspect, ending powdery, yeasty and still refreshingly, yet gently lactic-sourish. Indeed very different from any 'western' beer style, though certain forms of 'postmodern' mixed fermentation are - unsurprisingly - relatively close. This dolo indeed belongs to another, ancient world of beer traditions and I can imagine this not being very attractive to the average European or North American beer drinker's palate, however to the palate of the educated beer aficionado (certainly those with affinity for spontaneous and mixed fermentation), this is quite an interesting drinking experience and far from unpleasant, even if lacking in depth and complexity and emitting offensively 'medicinal' phenolic odours. But who knows, perhaps traditional African beers like dolo silently bear potential for a whole new chapter in craft brewing, if further elaborated upon? Difficult to see, the future is, but from what I heard, craft brewing is very slowly becoming more and more of a thing in 'dark' Africa, so I would not be surprised if some day in the near future, traditional African beer finds the required confidence to show its identity to the world of craft brewing, and make its very own contribution to it. As for this one: have an extra point for bottling it and thus making an ancient tradition more accessible to the world.