21/04/2019 @home - 75 cl bottle shared by a colleague. Clear golden, huge white head, heavily carbonated. Nose is sweet malts, banana, spices. Taste is sweet malts, heavily spiced, thin wheat. Not balanced.

Medium, rather stable yellowish-beige head, irregular, over virtually black beer. Very strong smoked meat or -fish nose, Maillard, bit hot metalslug, phenols, smokesalt. Severe. Much drier in the mouth, ashes, tobacco, woodfire flakes. In the finish, (too) smoked haddock or mackerel. Lightly burning MF, dry; good carbonation, light to medium body. Excellent with cured meat or fish (I tried!)

Porter by En Stoemelings, now with 'official' label (other than the provisional one shown on the picture here); longneck bottle from Geers. Opens with a fierce hiss, but by opening very slowly, I managed to avoid the gushing that otherwise would have been inevitable. Very thick and 'bath-foamy', very dense, densely and beautifully paper-lacing, pale yellowish beige, firmly closed and stable head, misty deep purplish-brown robe with copper red hue, dark but not as dark as usual for a porter in our modern age. Aroma initially emanating a lot of carbon dioxide (that sourish, soda-like smell), but after this has elapsed, a very yeasty and malty profile is unveiled: dried prunes, fresh figs, wet toast, red apple, wet clay or even plasticine, old brown bread, soggy tea bags, old sweat, an old gum, coffee grounds, dried mushrooms, baking soda, dried black radish peel, moldy chestnuts, some band aid phenols, fermenting tree leaves on a forest floor. Estery onset but low in sweetness, some red apple sharpness and some dried fig, lively carbonation as expected (typical Belgian ale level rather than typical porter level), with a sourish side effect; fluffy, bready malt profile, again restrained in sweetness, with a 'deep' sourishness running under it all. Soggy brown bread, old walnuts and soaking wet toast impressions, all rather dry, with a roasty, dull bitterness in the end, matching with a late but spicy and lingering, leafy and rooty hop bitterness. Everything remains drenched in quite heavy yeastiness, with relatively strong phenolic effects (cloves, even some mild band aid) and a kind of lingering, a very bready, almost starchy feeling and a dull 'yeast sourishness'. Way too yeasty, perhaps fermented at too high a temperature, but in any case this is not a great success, with the maltiness buried under not very inviting, phenolic yeasty effects; much more like an amateurish attempt at Belgian dubbel (albeit much more roasted bitter) than a true porter in the modern sense of the word. If you approach it as a dark Belgian ale, it is, however, still enjoyable - but too bad En Stoemelings didn't manage to produce a clean, straightforward, malt-forward English style porter. As much as I sympathize with the Brussels 'nouvelle vague' in brewing, this particular brewery has failed to impress me so far and this one clearly has technical flaws which they should be able to avoid.

Stone fruit, belgian yeast, light. Quite sweet, tart and tangy.

Doughy, taste better than aroma, very lively, mineralic. Thanks Kevin.

Wedzonka a la oscypek troche, nawet dosc mila. Kakao? Czrkolada? Niezaduzo ciala niestety, ale calkiem spoko