Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
Whisky-infused dark ale by this still young and relatively unknown Limburg brewery; sadly the kind of whisky is not mentioned. Bottle from Drinks4U in Deinze. Foamy, deep yellowish beige, membrane-lacing, dense and frothy head, very dark chocolate brown robe - blackish almost, with hazy burgundy edges being unveiled under bright light. Aroma of caramel, dried prunes, brown bread pulp, whisky piercing through indeed (non-peated!), clove, old raisins soaked in jenever, old wrinkled autumn apples, wet toast, damp tree leaves, nutmeg, toffee, ground hazelnuts, vague notes of beef bouillon and tobacco. Sweetish onset but nothing really sugary, estery fruity notes of fig, dried plum and pear, light porcini-like umami aspect, medium carb; quite full, bit 'fluffy' mouthfeel, brown-bready and bread-crusty dark maltiness with caramelly core and toasty tail, the latter bringing in a drying bitterness matching with leafy, earthy hops as well as with the whisky, which establishes flavour and warmth without behaving too rough, even if a slight alcoholic wryness does linger at the back. Clove- and nutmeg-like phenols join in as well. The name did not inspire a lot of confidence ('verloren' meaning 'lost') and I usually tend to dislike or at least distrust all these liquor-infused beers, too: I still feel that generally speaking, they are the lazy and cheap answer to barrel ageing and usually the liquor is too present for me. Here, however, it is fairly well done, in spite of a light 'end astringency' still annoying me a bit. A bit more refined than many of its pumped-up, boozy, crude congeners, admittedly, and an enjoyable beer on a sombre November evening.
tderoeck (22711) reviewed N3 - Elderflower IPA from Tom's Brouwerij 1 year ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
9/I/25 - 33cl bottle from Dranken Marlou (Zonhoven), shared @ home, BB: nothing marked on the side of the label (2025-26)
Clear to little cloudy gold to light beige beer, big solid irregular creamy to fluffy white head, pretty stable, a bit adhesive. Aroma: very floral indeed, yeasty, some coriander notes, a bit of a soapy impression, a little oxidized, some almonds. MF: very lively carbon, too much actually, medium to light body. Taste: pretty grassy start, bitter, grapefruit, hoppy, floral, pretty soapy. Aftertaste: good bitterness, a little fruity, hoppy, grassy, some grapefruit, a bit medicina, floral, ok, not great but pretty decent for a 3% beer!
tderoeck (22711) reviewed Pepe's Pine Tree from Tom's Brouwerij 1 year ago
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 2 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 1.5
31/X/24 - 33cl bottle from Dranken Marlou (Zonhoven), shared @ Fleur & Christophe’s place, BB: II/2026 (2024-1162)
Pretty cloudy orange beer, big aery irregular yellowish head, unstable, non adhesive, falls down quickly. Aroma: sweet impression, some honey, dusty, mouldy, sourish, a bit lemony maybe, very weird smell. MF: lively carbon, medium to light body. Taste: dusty, weird bitterness, dry, more dusty, meh. Aftertaste: sweetish, piny, dirty, don’t like it.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed Stout Molleke from Tom's Brouwerij 2 years ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
Stout by a nanobrewery in a village west of Hasselt in Belgian Limburg, which seems to do all brewing, bottling and labelling by themselves - cheers to that. Towering high, foamy, pillowy, firm, greyish pale beige, membrane-lacing head on an initially clear, very dark chocolate brown beer with burgundy edges, as good as black but not quite, misty with sediment. Aroma - at first difficult to perceive due to the huge head - of brown bread crust, dried blackberries, candied cherries, marmite, juice oozing from a medium rare horse steak, fig compote, iron (confirmed by the old 'hand test'), milk chocolate bars, ground hazelnuts, sirop de Liège, dust, black pepper. Sweetish onset, hints of ripe pear, fig and medlar, very sharply carbonated with overly minerally, stinging and numbing effect; very light umami notes here and there (meat) but the 'dark' fruitiness prevails through a supple, caramelly, brown-bready and somewhat hazelnutty maltiness with doughy core. Spicy notes in the end, clove and nutmeg along with a black-peppery, tea-leafy element from the hops, yeasty and fruity too, but with a well-measured roasted, coffee-ish bitterness underneath which survives all those distracting flavours. Again a very 'Belgian' interpretation of a (dry) stout, sharply overcarbonated and overly yeasty (fruity and spicy) for a genre which should be clean and sleek regardless of the intended substyle - but at least the basic flavours here work a lot better than in that Ad Vitam Stout I had before this one. With some cleaning up and reduction of that carbon dioxide, this could well become a very decent Irish style stout - let us say that there is growing potential in this one. Not bad at all for a Limburgian homebrewery (founded 2019) very limitedly going commercial.