Huge beige head over fully opaque brown-black beer. Nutty, soft roast, bit of coffee; hints of wood and leather, chocolate. Lots (and I mean lots) of stoutacidity, lactic acid, again roast, roasted nuts. Aftertaste yields again a bit of chocolate. Rather full bodied, despite the acidthinning; smooth, oily, well-carbonated. This is... peculiar. Original in any case. When the acidity is meant to be, then congrats! Txs to Stef!

Trocken röstiger, mild herber Beginn. Dezent nach Kaffee, schwacher Hintergrund, wenig getreidig. Okay-ish. 9/10/8/8/5/8

Bottle shared by Anke - many thanks! Cloudy black, small, foamy, beige head. Aroma of chocolate sauce, wet tobacco, dark fudge, bayleaf, cigarettes, brown bread, black tea, pear, vanilla bean, gin, iodine. Taste has sweetis pear, prune & raisin in a milk-chocolatey, brown-bready malt body; bit herbal, spicy and sourish. Earthy hoppy finish offering toast, herbal black tea, fondant, some dirty-spicy notes and heating gin alcohol. Medium to full body, oily texture, average carbonation. Not a bad little experiment per se, just a tad too dirty at the edges.

Zythos 2022. Black with thin dark head. Lots of dark roasted malt. Also something like zoethout, bay leaf, cough drops.

Sample at Zythos 2022, blond golden beer, small head. Aroma is sweer, malt, light funk, yeast, taste is the same, sweet, dough, yeast, malt, average blonde.

Sample at Zythos 2022, black beer, small head. Aroma is malt, roast, coffee. Taste is the same, bitter, dry, roast, coffee, very nice.

Special edition of Stoute René, infused with gin (increasing the ABV quite signicifantly to an 'imperial' level even if the base is still the same dry stout), limited to 1250 bottles. Medium thick, pale grey-beige, small-bubbled, opening head on a very dark chocolate brown beer with burgundy edges, hazy. Aroma of old coffee grounds, weird but prominent effect of Wiener sausages from a jar (or in fact: the water in such a jar after removal of the sausages), juniper berries (quite outspoken - no doubt coming from the gin), old black chocolate bars, burnt bread crust, thyme, bayleaf, black peppercorns, hints of marmite, indeed actual gin, reduced gravy, barbecue spices somewhere in the background but also something approaching the dreaded band aid. Restrainedly sweetish onset, meaty umami effect (the Wiener sausages again - or even fried barbecue sausages), hint of gravy, sourish touch, medium carb, supple and - for strength - proportionally slender body; brown-bready and toasty malt core, old bitter chocolate and burnt hazelnuts, black-coffeeish in the end under clear gin-evoking spicing (juniper berry again being most prominent, nutmeg-, clove- and dried citrus peel-like accents too). Roasted coffee-like bitterness, earthy hops and a warming, obviously clearly gin-like alcohol glow make up the finish but the alcohol does not become overly wry or obnoxious, even if the booziness is certainly there. Dry, slender profile, on the clean side but clearly showing off its gin botanicals and gin booze, with some weird meaty side flavours: definitely an unusual one, but not necessarily in a very classy way... Gin will never be entirely my thing, and nor are liquor-infused beers, which to me will always be a shortcut, attempting to create the effect of liquor barrel aged beers without actually barrel ageing them.

Occasional ‘René’ beer made for a garden centre apparently and showing a willow on its label, hence the name (‘wilg’ is Dutch for willow); thanks to tderoeck for sharing. Thick, egg-white, cobweb-lacing, frothy head, lightly hazy peach-tinged ‘old gold’ robe. Aroma of peach, banana, straw, red apple, honey, bubblegum, powder sugar, bitter green weeds, parsley, coriander seed soapiness. Sweet onset, lots of banana isoamylacetate, bubblegummy with additional notes of green pear and peach, fizzily carbonated; supple white-bready maltiness with a thin layer of honeyish sweetness on top but also vaguely metallic. Grassy and eventually quite leafy hop bitterness in the end, coriander seed soapiness, in all quite dryish with a pleasantly lingering bitterness. Straightforward, boring blonde, a bit like the original René itself actually, but technically correctly executed.

11/VII/20 - 33cl bottle from a trade, shared @ home, BB: III/2020 (2020-621) Thanks to Jerre for the trade!

Slightly cloudy gold blond beer, big solid creamy off-white head, stable, adhesive, leaving a nice lacing in the glass. Aroma: very smelly, dirty, shellfish, soapy, slightly fruity. MF: lively carbon, medium to light body. Taste: spicy, pretty dry, herbal bitterness, soapy, coriander, lemony touch. Aftertaste: pretty bitter, bit spicy, off, weird, sugary, sweet, banana, some bubble gum, meh.