Pours clear and golden with a medium-sized frothy head. The aroma contains caramel, yeast, fruits (peaches) and spices. It tastes medium sweet and light bitter, with a long and spicy finish. Medium body and fizzy carbonation. Decent, nothing special.

Pours dark amber to brown with a big frothy off-white head. The aroma contains especially roasted malts, caramel, brown sugar, some chocolate and spices. It tastes medium to heavy sweet. Medium to light body, creamy texture and soft carbonation. A bit dull, but not too shabby for a supermarket brand.

The last of Ben Vinken’s series of luxuriously presented specialty beers for Delhaize, added in late 2015 and nothing more than the Strong Dark aged on (Belgian) red wine barrels (Pinot Noir). Strange no one has rated this one before, as all the other beers in these two series were already present on this site... For two years in a row (2014 and 2015), self-proclaimed ’beer sommelier’ (or Belgian beer chauvinist) Ben Vinken has treated the Delhaize customer to a specially designed beer for every season but since I haven’t seen a new one pop up so far in this year, I guess the inspiration for making different styles each time has prematurely halted and we will not have a third series this year. Anyway: the 75 cl bottle with hangtag opens with a loud bang followed by some slow gushing, but nothing dramatic; obviously I did not follow Vinken’s advice to serve this ice cold like champagne and served it at cellar temperature, which is clearly a lot more fit for a barrel-aged ’massieve ale’. Thick and frothy, ’papery’ lacing but quite regularly shaped, pale yellowish beige and remarkably ’closed’ head over a dark, hazy chestnut beer with red wine-coloured hue. Aroma is, like many brown beers aged on red wine barrels, somewhat ’oud bruin’-like, with hints of indeed a full-bodied dry red wine, oaky tannins (furniture!), bitter chocolate, candied fig, blueberry, subtle coriander seed, burnt cane sugar, dried banana, orange peel, elderberry, forest floor, cloves, quite some young ’jenever’-like alcohol, soap, very faint FFF (freshly fermented farmland - I mean this as a euphemism for manure) but not disturbing, and a hint of varnish-like solvents - in all, interesting and quite attractive, though a bit ’wild’. Very spritzy onset, overcarbonated to a high extent with a rough, cava-like effect on the tongue, numbing at first but significantly (and luckily) calming down after a while, when pleasant sweetish and sourish fruit flavors begin to intermingle, with impressions of dry banana, fig, blackberry, blueberry and passion fruit. These fruity esters guide the palate to a deeply malty middle phase, lightly caramelly with a sweetish main character but, much more so, very nutty and deeply toasted, with quite sharply bittering edges. Meanwhile, a deep, soft vinous sourishness builds up, with an increasingly drying effect, further enhanced by quite a lot of drying, furniture-like oak in the end, yielding some subtle vanilla-like tannins and red wine aromas retronasally pairing well with the beer’s main malt and ester character; ends quite satisfactory, with ongoing maltiness and woodiness supported by earthy, gently bittering and well-dosed hops and a heart-warming glow of brandy-like alcohol, only showing up after swallowing and not becoming wry or astringent. The remainders of the wine are palpable all the way at the back, when indeed a warm red wine-like flavor sticks to the root of the tongue. A few minor comments aside, primarily the coarse, exaggerated carbonation in the beginning, I must admit that this is a fine beer, and by far the best of the two series. The aging on Genoels-Elderen barrels (a Belgian red wine) is clearly intended to lend it an air of terroir - or old school (and surpassed) Belgian beer chauvinism if you will, but as in similar projects by other breweries, has resulted in a relatively complex beer with Flemish red-like properties and a vinous, elegant character, in which the soft astringency of the wine and the ’fluffy’ sweetness of the beer are acting out an interesting play. All things considered, Ben Vinken does have the merit to have drawn attention to Belgian beer culture in a time when not many people cared about ’craft beer’ and linked this rich tapestry of Belgian beer flavors to gastronomy, but then commercial considerations got the better of him it seems, supporting the established family brewers in mysterious ways we will never know the ins and outs of. Regardless of his approach, which in my view is clearly obsolete in this day and age, I must say this one has been executed properly, and I will recommend it above the seven other Ben’s beers he has now promoted through the Delhaize supermarkets. I hate to admit it, but this one is at a relatively high level. It remains completely beyond me why an experienced ’beer connaisseur’ like Ben advises serving this (and his other offerings) ice cold like champagne, but anyway. Interestingly, the ratings that followed mine apparently progressively go downhill: I was originally considering to buy another bottle of this to see how well it ages, but I have the impression they harbor some kind of infection which becomes ever more clear as time passes by - older bottles are still available at some Delhaize supermarkets (as of September 2016) but with this in mind, I think I’ll refrain from buying a second one...

Huge, dense, rather stable yellow head over foxy orange beer, very well-carbonated. EU hops, sweet & lightly coloured malts, orange(peel), caramel, ironoxyde, orangecakes. Bitterish-toasted flavour, caramel and orangepeel even more present. Herbal, finish is rather dry. Well carbonated, slick, medium bodied. Pretty decent.

F: huge, long lasting, pale brown. C: hazy brown. A: malty, sweet fruity, dark dried fruits, caramel, molasses, yeast. T: malty, fruity, dark caramel, hint of like dry herbal bitterness, hint of dusty, leaves, brown sugar, bread, medium body, good carbonated, dubbel for supermarket but above-average for this purpose.

Tasting at Maakun’s. Bottle shared by Maakun. Houtig fruitig ananas funky. Backlog from 2015/10/16. --- Beer merged from original tick of Delhaize Brett on Wood - American Oak on 16 Oct 2015 at 20:54 - Score: 7. Original review text: Houtig fruitig ananas funky

Imported from my RateBeer account as Delhaize Ben's Speciale Belge (Ben Vinken) (by Delhaize):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 3/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 11/20, MyTotalScore: 2.8/5

22/XII/15 - 33cl bottle from Delhaize (Brusselsesteenweg, Ledeberg) @ home - BB: VI/2020 (2015-1753)

Clear orange beer, creamy off-white head, little stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: very fruity, bit sweet, yeasty, some banana. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: little bitter, big spicy, grassy, fruity touch, green banana. Aftertaste: metallic, bitter, some caramel. Underwhelming.

F: white, very thin, quick diminishing. C: hint of hazy, golden. A: sour sweet apple remind cider, some citrusy, yeast. T: some peach fruity, malt, huge white sugary, yeast, medium body, good carbo, some spicy, hint of grassy bitterness, nothing special from supermarket chain but not totally bad.