Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

I was fortunate enough to acquire a 33 cl bottle from Finest Belgian Beers a couple of months ago. I can appreciate most any quadrupel but one that is barrel aged? The sky is the limit. My Chimay glass is in place, I view a rich brown body with practically no head at all. I take a sniff to get cane syrup, stewed fruit and alcohol. The taste comes with a burn, I'll say that right off. Black plums, grain, malt, figs, a significant boozy presence, candi sugar and field. Unfortunately lacking carbonation, likely just this bottle. It would have been better but still is a credible quad, I detect the potential. I would like to try another.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6

Bottle at home. Dark brown color, no head. Aroma and flavor are malts, quite sweet and sugary, brown candy sugar, some oak maybe but mainly sweet sweet sweet.

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5

Bottle at home. Blonde color, white head. Aroma and flavor are malts, lemongrass notes, citrusy notes, sweetish a little later. Decent body and medium carbonation. Okay.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 8

New Mareklop beer, likely a 'downtuned' version of their quadrupel of local acclaim, even if 8% ABV is still quite hefty for a dubbel. Thick, regular, dense, pillowy, plaster-lacing, yellowish beige head on a misty dark chocolate brown beer with ruby red glow. Aroma of dark brown bread, ground walnuts, hard caramel without the sweetness, nutmeg, prunes, iron (unfortunately very strong - and unambiguously confirmed by the 'hand test'), dried fig, old raisinbread, pear, soapy coriander seed, Ersatz chocolate ('koetjesreep'), cooked apple, faint hints of blood pudding, clove, dry tree leaves, dried thyme, old tea bags. Sweetish onset with a sourish undertone, fruity hints of pear, fig and plum but relatively subdued, some banana, medium carb (just a little bit softer than average for a dubbel, I suppose), full and smooth mouthfeel. Ersatz-chocolatey, lightly toasted walnutty and brown-bready malts, filling the mouth cavity and remaining very true to the dubbel standard (Westmalle and the like); slight touch of dull coriander seed spiciness towards the end, a toasty-bitterish malt accent and - again, unfortunately - a clear 'zing' of iron. Herbal, mildly bittering but effective hoppiness in the tail, iron and toasty maltiness lingering, whilst getting the company of quite outspoken phenolic activity (clove, nutmeg, even a vague touch of thyme). I think I get the idea here: creating a lighter version of the Mareklop Quadrupel, logically calling it a dubbel - and making it a bit drier at the same time; this is a perfectly legit idea and the whole feels well thought out (even if I would personally have lowered the ABV a bit further to 6-7%), but then I wonder why it tastes so metallic? Maybe De Poes was not the best choice to have this brewed, as that metallic aspect is present in Poes' own beer as well sometimes and I am left with a feeling that this is something of a missed opportunity - ignoring the fact that you have already impressed with a quad and are now creating something 'below' that level. Generally speaking: this does feel (and look) like a very, very typical dubbel - I might even recommend using this one to teach people about the style rather than Westmalle Dubbel or Chimay Rouge - but the metallic effect needs to be addressed if this beer wants to shine in its respective category the same way the Mareklop Quadrupel shines in the old quad category.

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 7.5

Mareklop's marshmallow stout aged on barrels for twelve months; the label fails to mention which barrels, so I assume it is this 'jenever' version I have in front of me. Slow gusher, but with careful opening, it is possible to avoid loss. Medium thick, initially audibly crackling, mousy, hardly lacing, greyish beige head quickly 'breaking' in the middle but retaining well around the edge; black robe with initially clear, deep burgundy-red edge of only a few millimeters. Strong aroma of 'fondant' chocolate, grey rye bread, coffee cream, hot chocolate sauce, candied fig, indeed 'oude jenever' but also calvados, toffee or even some fudge (the marshmallow aspect, perhaps), wet old oak wood, wood varnish, wet clay, 'koetjesreep', pear, hints of liquorice, cooked meat, dried porcini 'jus', old walnuts, kahlua, beef stock, tawny port and - alas - solventy and phenolic effects of shoe polish, methylated spirits and even some very faint hospital. Sweetish onset but not too cloying, candied fig, some vague banana and medlar, blackberry coulis; fizzy carbonation with 'stinging' minerally effects (a bit much so for this style), still full and oily body. Deep toffeeish and caramelly, brown-bready maltiness with deeper black-chocolatey underbuild, but before one is allowed to enjoy this thick black malt profile, it gets thinned and marred by a strong 'jenever' effect, manifesting itself as rather prominent booziness before its time and a liquor-like, heating, peppery, eventually astringent finish, which indeed pours a lot of 'jenever' into an otherwise fine, malty beer. Spicy clove-like effects and tannic, drying woodiness accompany this final stage, with elements of bayleaf and salmiak lurking at the back; a dash of spicy hops is there, but the 'jenever' effect tastes as if the beer is gradually being replaced by actual jenever in the end, even though a lot of lovely coffee, bitter chocolate and roasted nut impressions remain intact. I hate jenever of any kind, and believe me, I had many; it will take a much 'bigger' beer than this one to convince me that ageing anything on any jenever barrel is ever a good thing. The jenever effect is so strong here that I have the feeling that the regular Nonnebil has been ruined by someone having poured a shot of jenever in it - Belgian consumers will recognize this principle as a duikboot, often applied to Duvel and the like. I cannot imagine many drinks more vile than a perfectly good beer with a shot of jenever in it - I did like the regular Nonnebil, quite a lot even, but this one clearly is less for me. It takes over all of that astringent spiciness and wry booziness I hate in actual jenever and does this in a much too explicit way - I think these Mareklop people need to keep in mind that a barrel, whether it contains any liquor or not, is an extra ingredient in beer and therefore to be treated with caution and elegance. This one is rather crude, overly boozy and earthy in its tail - Mareklop still has a long journey ahead if they want to seriously join the old family tree of barrel-aged strong stouts sprouting from Goose Island's first experiments with the now famous BCBS back in the nineties. Aside from all this criticism, however, I can appreciate the fact that they at least had the guts to create a 'marshmallow stout' (sounds like a pre-pastry stout in Belgian context) and then age it on barrels that once contained a native liquor that literally precedes English gin; this is at least an intense brew, to be consumed with care, and in a land still flooded with run-of-the-mill blondes and tripels, this deserves respect (and an extra point here in my humble opinion). The problem here is that there was still too much liquor left in the barrels they used, making the jenever too dominant in the end... If only some or other Belgian craft brewer could master the art of barrel ageing stouts - and I am ignoring some of the most internationally oriented now - and give jenever a boost along the way... I still have another jenever barrel-aged beer from Koelschip in Ostend now somewhere in my stash, but I think I'll save that one for another occasion.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

33cl Fles. BB juli 2019. Donkerbruin, beige kraag. Aroma van eik, donker fruit, chocolade, gebrande mout. Smaak is al wat geoxideerd, donker fruit, oude chocolade, iets waterig. Redelijk. Medium body.

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