nathanvc (6963) reviewed SB57 Sterk Blond from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 6.5
30 May 2021. At Brouwbar; cheers to Anke & Ama Deke! Clear golden, small, foamy, white head. Aroma of ripe banana, canned peach, apricot, plum, yeast, clove, white bread, pear. Taste has sweet banana, peach & apricot over a tangible malty base of white bread & dough, bit wheaty sour, vague spicy accents. Grassy hoppy finish, bit bitter, yet maintaining ripe fruit, dough and warming jenever-like alcohol. Medium body, oily texture, average carbonation. Quite typical, with a Brouwbar touch; likeable.
nathanvc (6963) reviewed PA53 Pale Ale from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
30 May 2021. At Brouwbar; cheers to Anke & Ama Deke! Clear orange, stable, frothy, white head. Aroma of mandarin peel, unripe peach, lime, grapefruit juice, biscuit, vague kiwi. Taste has sweetish mandarin & peach, sour kiwi & citrus zest with tangible biscuity maltiness. Floral hoppy finish, crisp & zesty with subtle stonefruit bitterness. Medium body, slick texture, average carbonation. Textbook APA in a sense; not Brouwbar's best but still above-average in the beerscape of course.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed NI62 New England IPA from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
The newest hazy IPA by Brouwbar to date, with eggshell-white, irregularly edged, creamy, slowly breaking head and completely cloudy yellow-apricot robe. Aroma of guava, freshly cut red apple, minerals, some moist white pepper, green banana, deep-fried parsley, grass, raw cucumber, white bread crumbs. Clean, sweetish onset, very smooth and restrained unripe banana, green melon and pepino fruitiness, lots of underlying minerality (more so than I recall from earlier Brouwbar NEIPAs) acting actually very crisp and refreshing; supple, slightly creamy body, white bread dough-like, coloured by grassy and grapefruity hoppiness – with just a pinch of tropical fruitiness to it, but mostly feeling ‘green’ and refreshingly herbal, also offering a late, peppery bitterness which exceeds the bitterness level of most NEIPAs today. Cleaner (in taste, not looks), more crisp, more minerally and more bitter than the average NEIPA – but very quenching and clearly distinct from its predecessors. Refreshing is the right word here.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed PA61 Pale Ale from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
New Brouwbar pale ale, launched last week and enjoyed at their pub from tap. Medium thick, small-bubbled, membrane-like lacing, of-white head, hazy deep amberish peach blonde robe (darker than average for an APA but looking a lot like the old EPA). Aroma of bread crust, lightly toasted peanuts, hint of fresh wormwood leaf, minerals, dry teabags, rainwater, old dried grapefruit peel. Very clean onset – almost neutral, in fact, though a faint hint of dried fruitiness is there; very fizzy carbonation and very minerally undertone, like NI62 (I actually asked the brewer if he had tinkered with his brewing water – which is not the case). This minerality feels so strong here that it almost becomes metallic, albeit in a completely ‘natural’ and by no means off-putting way; supple, slender peanutty and dry bread-crusty, rusk-tinged maltiness, with that toasty bitterish edge supported by tea-ish, long-lasting, very herbal hoppiness (a bag of old herbes de Provençe), but still this hoppiness manages to restrain itself in bitterness at least for an APA. And now that I am coming to conclusions anyway: this beer, much more than earlier APAs from Brouwbar, feels not like an APA, but like an old school EPA or English pale ale, a style that has become completely obsolete these days, a style no young craft beer hipster ever thinks about (let alone asks for), but a style previous generations used to drink by the gallon in Belgium – and a style which has also thoroughly inspired, or even spawned, the old Belgian amber ale or ‘spéciale belge’, another classic beer style nobody ever talks about anymore. Note to self: ask Benjamin next time if that was the intention…
Bierridder (4318) ticked Q56 Quadrupel from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Bierridder (4318) ticked TI49 Triple IPA from Brouwbar 4 years ago
tderoeck (22711) reviewed S58 Sour Saison from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8.5
15/IV/21 - 33cl bottle form the brewery, shared @ home, BB: 10/IX/21 (2021-289)
Clear amber orange beer, big irregular aery head, unstable, falls down quickly, bit adhesive, leaving some lacing in the glass. Aroma: very funky, sourish impression, fruity notes, bit lemony. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: bit malty, gentle acidity, quite fruity, some apricots and unripe peaches, juicy touch, nice acidity, very refreshing character, soft bitterness, some tannins maybe? Aftertaste: dry yet fruity finish, good bitterness, grapes, bit spicy, yeasty touch.
Paired nicely with a big pan of shakshuka!
nathanvc (6963) reviewed PS46 Peated Stout from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Bottle from take-away. Hazy black, small, frothy, beige head. Aroma of dried fig, prune, mocha, chocolate powder, peated whisky, earth, dark fudge, beef jerky, burnt sugar. Taste has sweet fig, prune & pear, incorporated in a thick chocolatey & fudge-like malt body with a sourish brambleberry undertone; a bit nutty & earthy-umami in the middle, smokiness throughout. Earthy hoppy finish, smoky-meaty aspect pairing well with chocolate & coffee powder, expected warming peated whisky alcohol in the very end. Full body, oily texture, soft carbonation. Massive effort by Brouwbar; extremely elegant & balanced Stout enhanced by the peated profile whilst avoiding the pitfalls of more gimmicky brews in that domain.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed SB57 Sterk Blond from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
New variation on Brouwbar’s strong blondes (after B17 in 2018 and SB32 in 2019), this time dry-hopped with Mosaic. Thick, snow white, cobweb-lacing, slowly opening, irregularly edged head on a misty deep ‘old gold’ coloured beer with almost ‘rusty’ tinge. Aroma of freshly cut red apple and Conference pear, white bread dough, Poire William, banana peel, leftover dough, kiwi, minerals. Fruity, sweetish onset, halfripe banana, ripe pear and apricot, nowhere cloying though, with soft carb and full, rounded, slick body; doughy, white-bready malts, something honeyish resounding and maintaining a generally sweet impression without it becoming too much, minerally side effects, soft floral hoppiness providing a grassy end bitterness and delicate kiwi- and jasmin-like retronasal aromas (the Mosaic speaking, though softly so). A bready-yeasty touch and warming gin-like alcohol linger in the finish. Accessible to the general Belgian palate even with the inclusion of a New World hop variety, because this variety performs a supporting role here rather than dominate the main stage; deliberately simple, easygoing, slim and slender, a tad more so than the two previous strong blondes Brouwbar produced in earlier years. Enjoyable enough.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed ISA59 Imperial Saison from Brouwbar 4 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
The newest Brouwbar beer to date, a strong saison, or indeed a cross between a tripel (or strong blonde in general) and a saison, bottle from Brouwbar shared with Steve. Off-white, irregular, rather loose and thin, quickly dissipating head on a misty orange-blonde robe with brownish-amberish tinge. Aroma of peaches in ‘jenever’, rusk, apricot jam, cognac, red apple slices, dried orange peel, thyme, clove, dry biscuit, pear juice, subtle earthy hints of sawdust, bitter garden weeds and beetroot juice. Sweet onset, cleanly and slenderly fruity, red apple, ripe pear and apricot with a dash of fresh fig, slight sourish undertone, soft carbonation gracing a supple, slender body, definitely feeling lighter than the ABV would suggest; supple rusk- and bit dry cookie-like maltiness, very slight toasty edge, carrying mild phenolic notes (thyme, clove) as well as a florally aromatic hoppiness – providing less bitterness than, in the end, very pronounced, heating, brandy-like alcohol, making for an astringent effect in the finish. Elegantly sweetish, lean, supple and elegantly aromatized, typical Brouwbar house style in most aspects – but unfortunately the alcohol is not well hidden and for me too obtrusive in both nose and mouth; I think a ‘thicker’, more dense malt profile, paired with a more vivid carbonation, could do this beer well. I do think it will improve with age, though – no doubt I had this too young, curious as I was to taste it…