The newest and already prize-winning HopSaSam beer, a stout flavoured with ‘lekkies’, a kind of sugar-and-butter candy typical for the municipality of Kerselare and protected as an official regional product. Thanks to tderoeck for the bottle! Regularly shaped, creamy, mousy, papery lacing, pale mocha beige, stable head, black robe with lightly hazy mahogany edges for about ½ inch off the edge. Quite distinctive aroma indeed, the ‘lekkies’ being present enough and adding something in between caramel candy or butterscotch, ‘Haagse hopjes’, liquorish and salmiak, with further notes of coffee cream, toasted walnut, beef stock cubes, pastry dough. Very clean onset, sweet candied fig paired with rather outspoken, but not unpleasant beef stock cube- and porcini-like umami, softish carb, light sourish accent; notably creamy, very smooth mouthfeel. Deeply nutty, toasty, toffeeish malt body, unsugared black chocolate bitterness but mitigated by the sweetness of those added ‘lekkies’, adding a caramelly and in the end almost liquorish-like aspect which is quite distinctive indeed; roasted, coffeeish bitterness and a spicy, bit rooty hop dosage which even ends a tad quinine-like, in turn keep the sweetness at bay in the finishing stage. The result is that these ‘lekkies’, which I never tasted myself, add flavour and aroma without turning the beer into a sweet mess. I hate the pooping dog on the label but the beer itself is technically remarkably well executed, clean and streamlined, with a good dosage of the different flavours at play; HopSaSam has produced some highly remarkable, very un-Belgian and very desserty barleywines so far and this flavoured stout is a highly interesting addition to their range, maintaining the same un-Belgianness and ‘dessertiness’ in a fascinating, tasteful way. Unusual and probably not to anyone’s liking, but recommended as a totally different new specialty beer in this country.

Reddish brown colour, diminishing white head. Malty aroma, apple, calvados. Sweet flavour, malts, calvados, wood. Sweet finish, wet wood.
(from 50cL bottle @ Milo's place)

Barrel aged Limpa (by Juks)

Bottle (thanks rask0linkov). Pours dark amber. Aroma is sweet, caramel, candy, booze, malt. Flavor is sweet and bitter, caramel, malt, sour, oak. Finish has slight sourness, oak, booze. Overall: okish, feels like needs more fermenting.

Thank you Bierridder_S! 330 ml. bottle sampled @ RBBSG 2018. Black mocha. Nose is dull grainy herbal, mocha, roast, yeast. Bland grainy mocha, low roast, thin & oddly some red grape, thin, quite meh.

Imported from my RateBeer account as HopSaSam Stouten Blackie (by HopSaSam):
Aroma: 8/10, Appearance: 3/5, Taste: 7/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 14/20, MyTotalScore: 3.5/5

6/X/18 - 33cl bottle @ late RBBSG, Brouwerij Totem (Evergem), BB: IX/2021, bottled: IX/2018 - (2018-1551) Thanks to Erwin for the bottles!

Clear dark brown beer, big creamy beige head, stable, adhesive, leaving some lacing in the glass. Aroma: quite some banana, soft roast, yeasty, sweetish, caramel. MF: soft carbon, medium body. Taste: some chlorine, soft roast, bitter, very dry, more roast, bitter, coffee. Aftertaste: sweetish, sugary, very bitter, dry, hoppy, some mocha, bit thin.

Sampled from bottle @ late RBBSG 2018. Dark brown to black color, medium sized beige head. Smell and taste are malts, sugary a bit, sweetish. Hmm bit weird. Maybe a hint of liquorice and slight liquorice bitter hints in the aftertaste. Ok beer.

Amber colour with no head. Aroma is quite mild with loght sweet fruit. Flavour is syrupy sweet. Warming cognac. Feels rich and smooth.