Alengrin
Ghent, Belgium 🇧🇪 MemberOptions
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Alengrin (11609) reviewed Snowed In from Burnside Brewery (UK) 6 months ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
Scotch (wee heavy) by this craft brewery in Aberdeenshire, enjoyed from a bottle at the Silver Darling, a commendable fish restaurant in the historical Footdee port town in Aberdeen. Medium sized, firm, pale greyish beige, irregularly edged, lacing head on a hazy ruddy chestnut brown beer with beautiful 'autumny' copper glow. Aroma of warm toast in the morning, caramel candy, sticky toffee pudding, hazelnut purée, ground almonds, a whiff of coffee, dried fig, fried pear, medlar, 'pepernoten', raisin bread, wet tree leaves. Sweetish onset, some yeasty-fruity notes (pear, medlar, fig, dried apricot), sharpish carbonation; slick mouthfeel, a tad oily, caramelly malts with hazelnutty and toasty edges, bittersweet with an almondy hint and more brown-breadiness in the finish when the yeast deposit is added. Vague clove and dried fruit effects are coming with this, paired with leafy hops and a subtle whisky-ish alcohol glow. It may have been the beautiful setting, looking out on the harbour through the large windows of the restaurant, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one as being among the best beers I had on the whole trip. Reminiscent of Orkney's Skullsplitter and the like, with smooth and balanced character as well as some ornamental yeasty notes, yet not to the extent that the overall effect becomes overly 'Belgian', if you get my drift - instead, remaining very - delightfully - malt-forward.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed 80 Shilling from Belhaven 6 months ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5
Probably the most well-know and popular Scottish ale, the group of often misunderstood and today seldomly seen low ABV beers that fall below the much better known Scotch ale or 'wee heavy' category - in fact I recall it took me a long time to find one back in the day when I tried to tick off every single beer style listed by Ratebeer.com. I noticed that there are two entries of the same name on this site, the other being identified as a bitter, but I think the ratings under that other entry belong here, as the brewery clearly - though implicitly - identifies this beer as a Scottish ale. From tap at the hotel in Aberdeen where I paired it with a Balmoral burger. Dense, creamy (nitro-tapped), lacing, medium sized, snow white head, clear pale ochre-blonde robe with odd bronze-ish hue. Aroma of wet toast, lightly toasted peanuts, a smoky effect not of Rauchmalz but rather burnt cardboard or something alike, freeze-dried chervil, tea bags, fried parsnip chips, ferrous spring water, minerals, dry hay. Fairly neutral onset, some dried apple or dried pear perhaps, softly carbonated with slender yet creamy (again: nitro-tapped) mouthfeel; slightly peanutty, thinly toasty and cereally malt core, toasted grains becoming more apparent in the finish, where a pleasantly balancing leafy and tea-ish hop bitterness sets in - but the smoky effect appears as well, again more reminiscent of burnt paper or wood ashes than actual smoke, yet adding to a dry, bitterish, somewhat minerally finish. Herbal, smoky and smooth, but thin and toasty too: took me a while to get used to as it is very different from the much stronger Scotch ale style I know and love, but in the end it did go down easily...
Alengrin
updated a beer:
80 Shilling
brewed by Belhaven
6 months ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 5 | Overall - 5.5
Scotland's equivalent to Belgium's Jupiler, from the 18th-century Glasgowian brewery which in our present time is owned by AB InBev; strange I never actually ticked this one before... Shared by Goedele at the hotel in Aberdeen where we were staying. Snow white, creamy, moussey, shred-lacing, frothy head over a clear 'old golden' robe with strong visible sparkling. Aroma of soggy breakfast cereals, wet sawdust, toasted rice ('hot' pale malts), hints of withered grass, spoiled potato mash, iron, burnt rubber and pond water. Sweetish cereally onset, very clean, sharply carbonated with minerally effect, numbing even; simple, slick cereally body with again that vague, yet annoying toasted rice element, adding some sort of fake, very thin 'nuttiness' which is completely out of place here. Ends with faint rubbery notes alongside a whiff of grassy hop bitterishness, becoming a tad rooty in the end - clearly the hops, in whichever industrial form, are applied a bit more generously here than in many other standard pale lagers churned out by AB InBev around the world. Just a 'microscopic' notch above average for a Euro pale lager.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed 1983 Lager from Fierce Beer Co 6 months ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7
Craft lager - intended as a standard pale 'macro' lager though - by Fierce in Aberdeen, apparently brewed for the local soccer team; had this in a pub in Aberdeen called The Noose & Monkey, where the landlady recommended it. Snow white, medium thick, papery lacing, rather creamy and firm head over a clear pale straw blonde robe with metallic 'greenish' tinge and fierce sparkling throughout. Aroma of freshly cut grass, cold pasta, young tree leaves in spring, cooked rice, some sourdough bread and soggy sandwiches. Neutral onset, fizzy carbonation with minerally effect, slender mouthfeel; there is something subtly metallic to it, but subtle enough not to disturb too much. Slick sweetish graininess with vague sourish edge (sourdough again), working to a mild but lingering grassy hop bitterness, even a bit peppery in the end and gently drying. Very pale in colour with is rarely a good sign, but in all quite effective and quenching - not bad at all in fact, almost as if a craft brewery mocks the macro standard lager industry by making a perfect imitation of it which is almost unnoticeably better quality...
Alengrin
updated a beer:
1983 Lager
brewed by Fierce Beer Co
6 months ago
Alengrin (11609) reviewed McEwan's - Champion from Eagle Brewery 6 months ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7
Scotch by Carlsberg-owned Scottish classic McEwan's, apparently specifically brewed (at least originally) as a competition entry, hence the - perhaps overconfident - name. Bottle from a mall in Aberdeen. Pale yellowish beige, dense and creamy, medium thick, membrane-lacing, slowly opening head on a clear deep and warm mahogany bronze robe with amber glow and fine strings of visible fizz. Aroma of caramel or even sticky toffee pudding, medlar, dried fig, lingonberry touch, clear added iron (hand test!), tea, chewing gum, wet tree leaves, dried banana, brown bread, walnut cake. Rounded, sweet onset with very light sourish tinge, quite actively carbonated (artificially) with subdued fruity notes of pear, medlar and fig; smooth caramel-malty middle, bread crust and very light nuttiness as well, even a brief and volatile nod at (powder) chocolate, but also the iron setting in at that point - alas. Toasty-bitter malt finish with mild herbal hoppiness in its trail, but consistently mellowed by dried dark fruit and toffee notes. Decent for a 'macro' wee heavy - way above the Gordon Scotch Ale still well-known in Belgium today, for example - but its most obvious flaws lie exactly in the fact that it is macro, being filtered, pasteurised and 'ironed'. Pour this into 'craft' form and you will have a beautiful example of the style.
Alengrin (11609) reviewed Original from Menabrea 6 months ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 5.5
Standard pale lager from an old school Italian lager brewery founded by one Giuseppe Menabrea in 1846 in the Piemonte region, distributed internationally - but not in Belgium, as I have never encountered it here and sampled it from tap at a hotel in Scotland. Stable and frothy, membrane-lacing, snow white head slowly diminishing over a clear yellow golden robe with visible sparkling. Aroma of wet cereals, industrial white bread, grass, minerals, hints of raw potato, raw cauliflower even, damp cotton cloth, vague diluted tonic water. Crisp onset, neutral but feeling very pure and agreeably clean, like a babbling brook - an effect I can surely appreciate in a lager. Very strong carbonation adds to this overall crisp minerality, running through a smooth, slender, sweetish graininess, a tad white-bready even, acquiring a grassy, subtle yet clear and pure hop bitterness in its tail, balancing and even efficiently drying - at least to general macro pale lager standards. Simple by nature - the style intrinsically calls for that - but clean, pure and easygoing, topping the likes of Moretti and Peroni as far as I am concerned, even to the extent that in a blind tasting test, I may easily take it for a true German Pilsener. Efficient and above average for the style, in my opinion, pairing well with the haggis bon bons I had at the aforementioned hotel.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9
The follow-up to Ambreus' first geuze, blended with lambics from the same sources, only this time incorporating more old lambics, including a four year old portion, unconventionally (but often with great results - see De Cam's Gooikoorts geuze, for instance). Distinghuished from the regular by the dark label. Thick and firm, regularly shaped, egg-white, even-bubbled, dense, crackling head gradually thinning, long retaining but eventually dissolving on a misty, warm apricot-orangey glowing peach blonde robe, the mist perturbed by countless tiny bubbles everywhere. Quite powerful bouquet of lime juice, sawdust, dried orange pith, green apple, barnyard, old cheese rind, unripe plum, horseblanket (Brett), background hints of withering garden weeds, wakame, raw mussels, manure, wet concrete and something very vaguely sweetish (peach). Spritzy onset, evidently sour with lime, green gooseberry and green apple notes, lemony and sharpish at the edges but mellowing down a bit further on, even though very prickly carbonation does accentuate it; mellowness comes more from a bready malt underbuilt, still strongly dried by lactic, malic and lemony acidity - as befits a good geuze. Woody tannins create even more dryness at the back while subtler minerally and earthy to 'funky' (Brettanomyces) elements fill the finish, which otherwise remains crisp and citric, with this lime juice effect lingering; old hop bitterness is present, but very subordinate to citric and malic sourness, dry breadiness, woodiness and earthiness. In all, this limited edition does feel a tad more sophisticated than the already - to my taste - successfull regular Ambreus geuze, a bit more distinguished and a bit more refined, but it still remains a very classically shaped geuze in all respects, ticking all the boxes and remaining firmly within the expectation pattern of the style without adding anything to it. Predictable, in that sense, but utterly solidly made so cheers to that. Really looking forward to the kriek that is to follow...