Bottle @ home. Opaque black color, average sized brown colored head that diminishes fairly quickly. Smell and taste malts, soft roast, light liquor, alcohol, malt bitter, bitter. Medium body and carbonation. Decent, but those barrel aged beers aren’t yet up to par with the level of their dark base beers.

Bottle at home. Very dark ruby-brown pour with a thin tan head. Notes of roasted malts, dark chocolate, licorice, smoke, dark roasted coffee, light citrus and piney hops in the background. A very nicely made porter.

Bottle @ home. Opaque pitch black color with a medium sized quite dense long lasting brown colored head. Aroma is malts, soft roast, medium barrel influence. Taste malts, initially some sweetness, a hint of red fruit, firm alcohol presence. Full body, firm carbonation, a bit too alcoholic and too heavy on the barrel aging imo.

Bottle @ home. Opaque jet black color, average sized beige to light brown colored head that diminishes fairly quickly. Aroma is malts, dark malts, firm to heavy barrel influences and slightly peat. Taste malts, dark malts, roasted malts, medium peat, just doable if you ask me (but I don’t like peatiness), slightly laurel, a leafy and slight metallic but also wood bitter finish. Medium body, smooth texture, suitable soft carbonation. Very solid, but the peatiness eventually starts to annoy me just a little too much.

0.375 l bottle from ’De Bierkoning’, best before May 2017. Clear, golden amber with a medium large, frothy, stable, white head. Sweetish, fruity and a bit herbal-grassy aroma of orange jam, mango and tangerine. Sweetish, slightly bitter, rather fruity and slightly herbal-grassy taste of orange jam, mango, tangerine and some ginger, followed by a medium long, rather bitter, herbal-grassy, just slightly resiny and a bit dry finish. Medium to full body, slightly oily mouthfeel, soft carbonation. Really nice, but could have been more aromatic, lacks a bit of punch to be honest.

Bottle from Drinks & Gifts, batch 8 BB 9-2017 (Columbus, Cascade en Simcoe), 37.5 cl sample. Hazy golden color, big frothy head. Quite sharp Simcoe aroma of onion and garlic, slight yeasty notes and a bit of cookie. Not perfectly clean and too harsh on the dryhopping Im afraid. Medium bitterness, again quite dry and a bit sharp. High carbonation, yeast has probably continued to work in the bottle, making the dryness in combination with the bitterness sharp. I like the Moersleutel porters and stouts, but their hoppy beers disappoint me a bit. But I will keep on trying them, as I hope they will improve on this in the near future.

Bottle at home. Murky amber with big white head. Sweet malts, grapefruit, caramel, strong raw potato peel ground bitter, some herbal ethereal spice. Moderate sweet and over medium bitter. Medium body, soft carbonation. Hops past their prime, too cold, both? Nice mineral water based texture. Finishes with a light fruity sweet and a very vegetable bitter.

Imperial porter from this new (2015) craft brewery in northern Holland, from a generous 37.5 cl bottle mentioning "gets better with age" but at the same time failing to mention a bottle date - which to me is an obvious flaw label-wise, though the best before date of September 2022 leaves little to the imagination. Batch 12, apparently. Medium sized, beige-ish egg-white head quickly opening in the middle but well-retaining as a firm moussy edge, over a generally black beer with hazy chestnut brown, translucent edges. Aroma of cold coffee beans, espresso, black chocolate, burnt toast, raisins, Cuban cigar ashes, dried plums, wet leather, lots of hard butterscotch candy, toasted hazelnuts, damp tree leaves in a forest, coffee cream, porcini stock cubes, black cherries, light banana, ruby port, kahlua, dry tea leaves, liquorish candy, earth, pear syrup, cloves and very faint hints of aniseed and even vanilla (phenols, likely). Rounded, sweetish onset, hints of fried banana chips, dried fig and hazelnuts with a deeper roasted barley sourishness and a light cured meat-like umami accent, ’finely’ tingling carbo (perhaps a tad much for an imperial porter) but otherwise thick, full, viscous mouthfeel. Dark maltiness coats the mouth: caramelly at first, a bit sweetish but quickly shifting to bittersweet nuttiness and ’black’ chocolatey flavours, and eventually to a full roasted, black coffee-like bitterness which fills the back of the mouth, even turning a tad ashy in the end. This bitterness is accentuated by a fair amount of spicy, leafy hops (70 IBU apparently) and carried downwards by an afterglow of rum-like alcohol which, even at 10% ABV, manages not to interfere with the flavours too much, though eventually getting a bit wry on the root of the tongue. Thick, oily, roasted bitter, ’dark’ maltiness flows down in a tangible manner. The dark fruit sweetness is pleasant, but no match for the roasted coffee bitterness that fills the mouth shortly afterwards; if anyone told me this is actually an imperial stout, I would accept it immediately. Too roastedly bitter for an imperial porter which, if anything, tends to distinguish itself from imperial stout in being sweeter and more rounded, in other words less heavy on the roasted barley. Style issues put aside, this is doubtlessly a rich, generous, ’deep’ and tasty beer, a feast for those into heavy black beers, juicy and in spite of its roastedness and alcoholic finish, retaining a high degree of drinkability. I think I enjoyed this even more than that Motorolie - the actual imperial stout from this brewery - I had several weeks ago, in being better balanced, cleaner and even more ’filling’. Motivating to get my hands on more from this brewery, especially their barrel aged brews, but even though they are well on their way, they are still not quite on the level of Holland’s greatest (Molen, former Emelisse, Kees, Uiltje) when it comes to this type of beers.