Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
On tap at the 14th Brugs Bier Festival, Brugge, Belgium. A very dark brown coloured pour with a healthy beige head on top. Roasty, malty, dark fruit, caramel. Decent but quite sweet.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
On tap at the 14th Brugs Bier Festival, Brugge, Belgium. A dark brown coloured pour with a thin off white bubbly head on top. Sweet, boozy, caramel, slight chocolate, dark fruit taste and aroma. Nice but obviously very boozy.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
27% - dark brown with no head or carbonation. Aroma and flavour have lots of caramel sweetness. Taste of molten chocolate liquer. Warming. Full. Oily.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Delivery of a 33 cl bottle of Monachus XII by a nice Belgian seller. Anytime I can get a new quadrupel, It is only to the good. A pour into a snifter leaves a totally dark, non-light reflecting body with a relatively exuberant light tan head. I lift the glass to smell, Yow, nice. Black cherries, dark fruit and malt. The drink, yow, nice too. Coffee cake, candied fruit, dark bread, malt, a bit of yeast and chocolate. I am impressed.On the sweet end but that is okay. Most quadrupels bring something a little different from the one before.
bier4der (3358) ticked Monachus XII from De Vier Monniken Brouwerij 5 years ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5
Pours very dark brown, nearly black. Small tanned white ring of foam. Scent is toffee, charcoal, mild oak. Taste is sharp, tart, mild barrel. Red wine. Not really getting the Bourbon or cognac at all. not bad, just not what you expect from what it should be.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
75cl from Bierboom, Bruges. Pours hazy golden with an unstable, frothy, white head. Aroma of old apple, banana, apricot, dark honey, dust, cellared fruit, yeast, wet clove, fruit jenever, bit oxidized. Taste is a sweet estery profile of banana, apricot & honey over a bready, almost white sugary malty base, touch of spicy clove. Dryish, grassy hoppy finish, ripe fruit, oxidized, yeasty & dusty with rather strong vodka-like alcohol. Medium body, oily texture, fizzy carbonation. Might have been a tad too old.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
330ml bottle. Opaque, darkest mahogany, quasi black colour with small, bubbly, half-way lasting, minimally lacing, beige head. Not overly intense, dark malty and yeasty fruity aroma, notes o fdark chocolate, hints of plum, raspberry, a touch of Marsala, cherry, Sherry, whiffs of alcohol and almond. Taste is sweet, dark and caramel malty, minimally vinous, yeasty fruity, notes of plum, Sherry, Marsala, some cherry, raspberry, plum butter, blueberry jelly, a touch of nougat. Oily to viscous texture, super-soft, smooth and slightly cloying palate, soft carbonation. Quite sweet, but very fruity, harmonious, rich, complex and multifaceted; withal dangerously drinkable. A very nice sipper.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5
Vier Monniken's imperial stout (flavoured with coffee, cinnamon and juniper berries) aged on bourbon barrels; bottle 179 of apparently only 350 made. Very densely mousy, audibly crackling, initially very thick, plaster-like lacing, brownish beige head, slowly opening and dissolving, eventually reduced to a thin ring; jet black robe with only the thinnest imaginable edge of burgundy. Intense aroma of coffee grounds, 'fondant' chocolate, 'jenever' or indeed juniper berries, wet cinnamon powder, mocha dessert, candied figs, vanilla-scenting oak wood, sweet bourbon, reduced madera sauce, incense, cigar ashes, toffee, porcini fried with brown sugar, damp earth, plum, pipe tobacco, spiced cookies, cloves, dust, bay leaf, clay. Sweetish onset, dried plum, candied fig, black cherry and blackberry notes, very light sourish edge, initially lively carbonation (bit much for the style) but this fades quickly to a much softer level; very full, oily, even syrupy mouthfeel. Thick toffeeish, black bread-like and chocolatey maltiness, sweetish but not overly so, spiced with obvious juniper berries and less obvious but still noticeable cinnamon - before, in the very end, an aromatic coffee effect pops up as well. This coffee element pairs with a light roasty bitterishness in the tail, turning a little bit ashy for a brief moment, while medium strong woody tannins add dryness; a herbal hop bitter touch appears in teh finish, along with warming, yet nowhere astringent, bittersweet bourbon. Lingering spicy and toffeeish notes. Old school RIS profile here, with an almost Struise-like robustness, ashiness and syrupiness (think Cuvée Delphine or some of the Black Damnations); the alcohol, though considerable, does not 'burn' annoyingly and leaves enough room for the sheer thickness of the malts to be played out. Impressive Belgian imperial stout rather than a 'Russian' one, but I really love its boldness, thickness and intensity.