Been far too long since I sipped a brew with a bro, so I invited BeerBert over for a chat and guess what? He brought beer :)
Préaris is the flagship brew of Het Vliegende Paard, a new-and-coming brewery who started making a name for themselves after winning the Brouwland Homebrew Competition in 2011. Since then, things have sped up a lot for them, and they've obviously been busy. Their brews can be found in quite a few drinks stores around the country, and although still far from widely known, they are rising from the murk of obscurity and seem to be settling into the furniture of Belgium's zythological sipping room.
The basic Préaris is a typical quad, with a bit of booze to carry a rich and spicy onslaught of malt. Very "Belgian" if such a thing exists, and although not my favourite style, it's still a very stylish brew.
This Préaris Grand Cru rides the wave of barrel aging wich is finally reaching even the most obstinate of Belgian traditionalists. Over here, barrel aging is still mostly done only by wacky craft brewers, and only cautiously by the larger mainstreamers, but Het Vliegende Paard obviously saw the potential of the technique. For the 2012 edition, they used Rémy Martin cognac barrels in a very limited release of less than 2500 bottles.
The beer pours nice and clean, deep mahogany with a tinge of red. Delicate off-white head which promptly succumbs to the alcohol, dwindling to a bit of lacing near the edges. In the nose, there's an immediate indulgence of milk chocolate with a splash of booze and woodsy vanilla. The cognac itself is delicately hidden, and while there's a trace of booze to be detected, it never gets thick and cloying like a boubon barrel often does.
On the palate, all those highlights the nose detected make the rounds again, gracefully and balanced. Milk chocolate was my main impression, and the signature heavy spice of the quad genre was notable toned down, making this a very rewarding brew. Impressive, and I'll definitely pay more attention to what these guys come with next (wich is bourbon, apparently).
Next, I pulled out a sample of that Kagami Biraki brew I didn't dare bring to the New Year's drink at the dojo as it wasn't quite ready yet. Turns out the hops have gone down a bit (which is rarely desirable but a good thing in this case) but are still too harsh to make the beer enjoyable. Also, the sluggishness of my yeast pitch seems to have made for an utter lack of banana-clove-esters which would have lifted the beer above its current state as "hop soup". So yes, I'm becoming disappointed with this beer, but I'm sure there's lessons to be learned so yay. Ish.
Next up was a brew I got from my beer trade buddy Joan who sent me a crate of Catalan/Basque brews a while ago. So far, I've been cherrypicking the IPAs he sent me (which were pretty damn good actually), but have kept the darker stuff for occasions such as this, so out came this brew.
If BeerBert looks a bit miffed to you on that pic, you're not mistaken: this was a weird brew alright.
Reptilian is, if I'm to believe Joan, a homebrewer who brews what he can, when he can. So I'm guessing he contract brewed this on some else's rig, which is impressive and makes me just a little envious. Cocoa's Dark Side is a 5.2% chocolate stout and when I say chocolate I really do mean chocolate this time. The beer's so laden with cocoa it formed a film on the inside of my glass, with suspended cocoa dust particles visible in the beer itself. When poured, it fizzed. As if I'd poured a very dark brown beer on top of an Alka Seltzer. Not fifteen seconds later, the frothy head had disappeared entirely, revealing a murky brown surface with streaks of oily cocoa exudate doing beery impressions of the Exxon Valdez. Not a pleasant sight at all, and I'm not a fussy drinker when beer's concerned.
The beer positively reeks of cocoa. There's bit of beer underneath which just about makes the grade, and if that were lacking, I could have thought is was a cocoa-based dairy beverage. Not so much bad as pretty weird and alienating. Which, all things considered, is a good thing.
Sort of.
In the mouth, the beer drowns in cocoa. You get a big, dense whoof of chocolatey one-direction-ness (no, not that one direction), and just when it could turn into a rewarding beer, it veers off the track and into the deep dark woods. There's an unpleasant iron tang of roast barley which, together with the chocolatey-but-not-quite-chocolate sensation of the cocoa gives the beer a thin and anaemic mouthfeel. The beer's quite flat, with all carbonation seemingly puffed out as once the beer hit the glass. A mildly unpleasant afterburn of something-or-other (I'm guessing yeast and maybe some hop bitterness) doesn't exactly invite one to take the next sip. Weirdly enough, there's Pacific Gem and Phoenix hops in the mix, neither of which ever step out. The beer could've been brewed with any old neutral hops and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
A disappointing beer, although bold in its ambitions and aspirations. It really does make me wonder if cocoa beer can be made to work at all. While I'm loathe to compare any beer to it because the comparison is invariably unfair, it does ring nasty echoes of that one time I dared to try the best known chocolate beer in the world.
To finish on a more positive note, we dug up a bottle of this.
That's Rooie Dop's Double Oatmeal Stout, barrel aged on bourbon. Three different ones, no less: Buffalo Trace, Wild Turkey and Satin Wood. Rooie Dop is perhaps the best known of the unknown Dutch breweries around, and if you look at the experimental brews listed on their blog, you cannot help but wish these guys would get the break they deserve.
DOS is reckoned to be their best commercial brew by many, and the BA version came highly recommended to me by StDennis himself (many thanks for the bottle, buddy!). Off with its head!
The beer pours just like an imperial stout should: thick, black and viscous, with a prudent mocha coloured head. You don't need to smell this beer; the smell will come to you. Thick and glowing bourbon alright, with that heaven-made match of dark roast and coffee of the base beer underneath. And funny enough: a whiff of yoghurt when I took a first sniff. Fresh and zingy, and utterly unexpected. BeerBert didn't find any yoghurt, so it's possibly a low-threshold thing; once I took a sip, the yoghurt was gone and never came back.
Oh but that sip...the Rooie Dop guys really nailed this one: think and unctuous and perfectly balanced bourbon...this is a keeper. Hits all the right spots and never becomes too much of a good thing or not enough of it. There's touches of vanilla and toffee hidden in the malt, and just enough boozy kick to make you go easy on the sipping. A delight, really and truly.
Ahhh it's good to be back :)
Greetz
Jo
 |
| This beer. Pic not mine cuz I forgot to take one. |
The basic Préaris is a typical quad, with a bit of booze to carry a rich and spicy onslaught of malt. Very "Belgian" if such a thing exists, and although not my favourite style, it's still a very stylish brew.
This Préaris Grand Cru rides the wave of barrel aging wich is finally reaching even the most obstinate of Belgian traditionalists. Over here, barrel aging is still mostly done only by wacky craft brewers, and only cautiously by the larger mainstreamers, but Het Vliegende Paard obviously saw the potential of the technique. For the 2012 edition, they used Rémy Martin cognac barrels in a very limited release of less than 2500 bottles.
The beer pours nice and clean, deep mahogany with a tinge of red. Delicate off-white head which promptly succumbs to the alcohol, dwindling to a bit of lacing near the edges. In the nose, there's an immediate indulgence of milk chocolate with a splash of booze and woodsy vanilla. The cognac itself is delicately hidden, and while there's a trace of booze to be detected, it never gets thick and cloying like a boubon barrel often does.
On the palate, all those highlights the nose detected make the rounds again, gracefully and balanced. Milk chocolate was my main impression, and the signature heavy spice of the quad genre was notable toned down, making this a very rewarding brew. Impressive, and I'll definitely pay more attention to what these guys come with next (wich is bourbon, apparently).
Next, I pulled out a sample of that Kagami Biraki brew I didn't dare bring to the New Year's drink at the dojo as it wasn't quite ready yet. Turns out the hops have gone down a bit (which is rarely desirable but a good thing in this case) but are still too harsh to make the beer enjoyable. Also, the sluggishness of my yeast pitch seems to have made for an utter lack of banana-clove-esters which would have lifted the beer above its current state as "hop soup". So yes, I'm becoming disappointed with this beer, but I'm sure there's lessons to be learned so yay. Ish.
 |
| See that lining? That's what I'm talking about. Pic again not my own since it was already dark outside and no a silver lining in sight. |
 |
| That's what pics look like when processed by Instragram's Hop Filter. Now you know why I rarely post my own. |
Reptilian is, if I'm to believe Joan, a homebrewer who brews what he can, when he can. So I'm guessing he contract brewed this on some else's rig, which is impressive and makes me just a little envious. Cocoa's Dark Side is a 5.2% chocolate stout and when I say chocolate I really do mean chocolate this time. The beer's so laden with cocoa it formed a film on the inside of my glass, with suspended cocoa dust particles visible in the beer itself. When poured, it fizzed. As if I'd poured a very dark brown beer on top of an Alka Seltzer. Not fifteen seconds later, the frothy head had disappeared entirely, revealing a murky brown surface with streaks of oily cocoa exudate doing beery impressions of the Exxon Valdez. Not a pleasant sight at all, and I'm not a fussy drinker when beer's concerned.
The beer positively reeks of cocoa. There's bit of beer underneath which just about makes the grade, and if that were lacking, I could have thought is was a cocoa-based dairy beverage. Not so much bad as pretty weird and alienating. Which, all things considered, is a good thing.
Sort of.
In the mouth, the beer drowns in cocoa. You get a big, dense whoof of chocolatey one-direction-ness (no, not that one direction), and just when it could turn into a rewarding beer, it veers off the track and into the deep dark woods. There's an unpleasant iron tang of roast barley which, together with the chocolatey-but-not-quite-chocolate sensation of the cocoa gives the beer a thin and anaemic mouthfeel. The beer's quite flat, with all carbonation seemingly puffed out as once the beer hit the glass. A mildly unpleasant afterburn of something-or-other (I'm guessing yeast and maybe some hop bitterness) doesn't exactly invite one to take the next sip. Weirdly enough, there's Pacific Gem and Phoenix hops in the mix, neither of which ever step out. The beer could've been brewed with any old neutral hops and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
A disappointing beer, although bold in its ambitions and aspirations. It really does make me wonder if cocoa beer can be made to work at all. While I'm loathe to compare any beer to it because the comparison is invariably unfair, it does ring nasty echoes of that one time I dared to try the best known chocolate beer in the world.
 |
| The Shoggoth of all beers. |
To finish on a more positive note, we dug up a bottle of this.
 |
| "You're sure this one doesn't have any cocoa in it? At all?" |
DOS is reckoned to be their best commercial brew by many, and the BA version came highly recommended to me by StDennis himself (many thanks for the bottle, buddy!). Off with its head!
The beer pours just like an imperial stout should: thick, black and viscous, with a prudent mocha coloured head. You don't need to smell this beer; the smell will come to you. Thick and glowing bourbon alright, with that heaven-made match of dark roast and coffee of the base beer underneath. And funny enough: a whiff of yoghurt when I took a first sniff. Fresh and zingy, and utterly unexpected. BeerBert didn't find any yoghurt, so it's possibly a low-threshold thing; once I took a sip, the yoghurt was gone and never came back.
Oh but that sip...the Rooie Dop guys really nailed this one: think and unctuous and perfectly balanced bourbon...this is a keeper. Hits all the right spots and never becomes too much of a good thing or not enough of it. There's touches of vanilla and toffee hidden in the malt, and just enough boozy kick to make you go easy on the sipping. A delight, really and truly.
Ahhh it's good to be back :)
Greetz
Jo
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