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

17/08/2019 @home - 33cl bottle from Willems en Zoon, Grobbendonk. Dark brown, with yellowish head; Nose is dark malts, bit fruits, praline. Taste is dark malts, bit fruits, sweet, hint of cream, candy,.

Not that great...

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

Mareklop’s strong blonde made for Lokerse Feesten but – with interruptions – apparently kept in assortment. Thanks to Pimmy (the brewer’s wife) for the bottle, to ‘Kristonian’ Tony for bringing it to Ghent and to the Brouwbar for keeping it aside for me… Medium thick, eggshell-white, opening head lacing in shreds, lightly hazy pale orange-hued ‘old gold’ robe. Aroma of relatively strong isoamylacetate (banana ester) and quite outspoken DMS (overcooked, sulfuric vegetables), next to hints of apricot, coriander seed, soggy white bread, apple peel, damp straw, crackers, dried out turnips. Fruity onset, banana but admittedly less strong than expected based on the nose, apple, apricot, sharp and minerally carbonation, slick cereally and ‘thinly’ bready maltiness with a light touch of residual honeyish sweetishness; dusty coriander seed spicy note in the finish along with floral, grassy hop bitterishness, retronasal DMS as feared, light phenolic notes and relatively pronounced ‘jenever’-like alcohol that could have been a bit better hidden. Mareklop is clearly better at quadrupels than at tripels…

Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5

Imported from my RateBeer account as Mareklop IPA (by Mareklop):
Aroma: 5/10, Appearance: 2/5, Taste: 5/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 11/20, MyTotalScore: 2.6/5

8/IX/18 - 33cl bottle from the brewery, shared @ home, BB: n/a (no markings on the side of the label to mark a date) - (2018-1222)

Clear orange to amber beer, small creamy off-white head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: sweet malts, some caramel, bit chemical, paint thinner, green apples. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: malty, grains, very bitter, bit chemical, unpleasant bitterness, dry, caramel. Aftertaste: dusty, bitter, bit resinous, dried fruits, malty finish. Don't the chemical character in this beer...

Well balanced. Lci Gents bierfestival 2018

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

Black with thin creamy head. Aroma has light vanilla. Carbonation is quite high. Flavour has dark malts. Lots of dried fruits. Sweet finish.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 8.5

"Marshmallow stout" - sounds hip - and the first stout 'tout court' by Mareklop, one of their newest. Bottle from Wijnegemse Drankenhandel. Medium thick, creamy, lightly lacing, pale yellow beige, dense head, slowly thinning and eventually opening, on a jet black beer with hazy chestnut brown edges. Aroma of 'fondant' chocolate bars soaked in water, salmiak, treacle, dried prunes, fried banana slices, burnt toast and burnt chestnuts, burnt brown sugar, dry earth, pipe tobacco ashes, hints of toffee, bayleaf taken from a boiling beef stew, wet leather, marshmallows but only in the original sense of the word and toasted black, shoe polish, brown rum, black radish, haemoglobin iron. Sweet onset with thin sourish undertone and early roasted bitter accents, dried prunes and banana slices, burnt brown sugar effect, spritzy carbonation but finely tingling and not impairing a full, heavy, oily mouthfeel, however feeling strangely lighter than 10.5% ABV. Caramelly and bitter-black chocolatey, severely toasted malt bittersweetness, lots of outspoken black coffee-like roasted bitterness in the finish, the bitterness of which is accentuated not only by a good dose of spicy, rooty, earthy and bit tonic water-ish hops but also by a strong, bit burning glow of rum-like alcohol, perhaps just a tad too boozy for my liking. The decadently sweet and creamy marshmallow effect I was expecting based on the premise, stays away, while the 'Belgian-ness' is apparent in the form of a bready, bit phenolic yeast effect at the back. Not the thick, overly sweet and creamy, luscious, 'fat' Scandinavian style pastry stout I was allowed to expect based on the name, but another Belgian attempt at imperial stout - yet within that context, one of the better ones I had so far, truth be said. Less condense, thick, complex and intense than the best of Belgian imperial stouts (Struise's Black Albert and its offspring, for example), but clearly above average, compared with the often overly yeasty, phenolic, estery, harshly or insufficiently roasty, 'raw' and dirty beers many other Belgian breweries come up with when venturing into this style. Probably the best Mareklop so far.