Cuvée #3
Brouwerij De Molen

Cuvée #3Cuvée #3
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From:
Brouwerij De Molen
 
Netherlands
Style:
Russian Imperial Stout
ABV:
11.4%
Score:
88
Avg:
3.96 | pDev: 12.12%
Reviews:
23
Ratings:
56
Status:
Retired
Rated:
Feb 14, 2021
Added:
Apr 26, 2015
Wants:
  4
Gots:
  5
No description / notes.
Recent ratings and reviews. | Log in to view more ratings + sorting options.
Ratings by Odysseyalien:
Photo of Odysseyalien
Rated by Odysseyalien from New Jersey

4.18/5  rDev +5.6%
look: 3.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4.25

Nov 02, 2015
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 4.71 by mishi_d from Romania

Feb 14, 2021
 
Rated: 4.69 by DvdP from Netherlands

Dec 17, 2020
Photo of BlunderfulGuy
Reviewed by BlunderfulGuy from Nebraska

4.23/5  rDev +6.8%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4.25
Bottled 27 MRT (March) 2015, drank March 31, 2020.

Look: Some carbonation, no head or lacing, miniscule lines of bubbles on the inside edge of the glass and few streaks and small bubbles in the center.
Aroma: Tiramisu, soy sauce, molasses, fudge brownie corners, dark rye bread.
Taste: Dark, deep, savory and fruity; dark chocolate truffles and brownie corners then grilled dark fruits (fig, plum, grape) and balsamic vinegar, faint charred grain and scorched vanilla bean marshmallow crossed with dark roast coffee and soy sauce-soaked bourbon barrel.
Mouthfeel: Thick, not too syrupy, just enough carbonation to keep it a little moussey and velvety.

Overall extremely rich, deep, complex, a little sweet and a little savory. It seems like it just started heading in a complete soy sauce direction and by chance I opened it at a perfect time after five years in a cold basement shelf.
Apr 11, 2020
 
Rated: 3.72 by crobinso from Colorado

Aug 08, 2019
Photo of Lone_Freighter
Reviewed by Lone_Freighter from Vermont

4/5  rDev +1%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
This was poured into a snifter. The appearance was a black as night color. It poured like ink out of the bottle and left no head. But the aroma made up for everything. A fully combined rich sweet and roasty chocolate covered sour fruity (leaning to cherries, slightly). Dry oakiness. The taste had the rich and roasty cocoa bean dryness really coming across in the aftertaste. Light sticky to dry finish. On the palate, this one sat about a medium in body. Good sipping quality created due to the dryness. Carbonation feels fallen off due to the age, I’m guessing. Overall, I’d say this was a pretty good Double/Imperial Stout that I would have again.
Jul 14, 2017
 
Rated: 3.75 by Hayley_86 from Netherlands

Jun 06, 2017
Photo of Jugs_McGhee
Reviewed by Jugs_McGhee from Colorado

3/5  rDev -24.2%
look: 3 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 3 | overall: 3
BOTTLE: Brewed and bottled in Bodegraven. 11.2 fl oz format. Brown glass. Red wax covers the pry-off crown cap. Simple black and white label. Imported by the Shelton Bastards. Bottled 27 Mrt 2015.

"22 plato." "EBC: ???" "??? EBU." 11.4% ABV. Unpasteurized. "A barrel aged blend of several of our beers." "A special blend for the 70th Anniversary of Monks Cafe Sweden." "Ale." Per the Shelton Bastards' website: "imperial stout."

Served cold into a Guinness goblet and allowed to come to temperature over the course of consumption.

HEAD: Merely 1cm in height, with a consistency that isn't robust and tends towards the thin weak side. Khaki colour. Recedes fully within 1 minute, leaving no lacing.

BODY: Opaque jet black (to style). No yeast/lees visible within.

Overall, it's a typical appearance for the style. Not unique or special, but appropriate.

AROMA: Wood. Barrel char. Burnt sugars. Chocolate malt. Dark malts/schwarz malts/black patent malt. Cocoa powder. Caramelized dark fruit is faint but present. Vinous notes. Anise/fennel/licorice family rooty earthy herb. Gooey plum and stonefruit. Tannic.

Suggests a brew with an impressive level of complexity and a precarious push-pull between bitterness and sweetness but a reticent depth of flavour. Aroma is muted and closed off, and I had to really search to pick out the notes mentioned above. I hope it's richer and more expressive than this aroma suggests. Not an intense or bold aroma by any means.

Those hoping for a rich barrel character redolent of oak, bourbon, or wine will be disappointed by the vague generic wood and faint barrel char in this aroma.

TASTE & TEXTURE: Dessert-like sweetness from dark/schwarz/chocolate malts in tandem with gooey dark fruits/stonefruits like plum and prune opens the beer. A tannic wooden undertone hits after the first act and stays into the finish, preparing the drinker with a blip of bitterness before the beer assaults with vinous bitterness, charred sugars, and roasty/coffee grounds-like bitterness in the late second act.

Wine-like acidity plays to the rough harsh tannins, leaving the impression of red wine but none of the flavour. Barrel char is there, but there isn't the gooey thick feel this needs to really capitalize on that (nor are there any marshmallow-redolent or toffee-like notes). Oak? Nah, not really - just generic wood. I don't get any bourbon or port, but I don't doubt that one of the blended beers was a bourbon barrel aged beer. I don't find any of the peat De Molen tends to put in their barrel aged stouts; I doubt a Bruichladdich or peated whisk(e)y barrel aged brew was one of the constituent beers.

The risk with these barrel aged blends - as we've seen in arguable failures like The Bruery's solera series and Firestone Walker's troubled anniversary brews - is that they come off scattered, chaotic, unfocused, and anything but cohesive or gestalt. This brew is no exception, though it feels closer to a whole of a build than those examples. The clash of bitterness and sweetness is uneven and feels unintentional. One might say the soul of each beer used was sucked out by virtue of having been blended (if you'll allow the budding pretension implicit in that notion).

None of which is to say that I dislike it. While reticent and shallow for a barrel aged imperial stout (blend), it still has some nice flavours bouncing around even if they don't quite come together to form a gestalt whole that exceeds the sum of its constituent base beer parts. The gooey fruit is nice, the barrel char works, and it's a nice dessert sipper for what it is, with plenty of complexity in spite of lacking order and layering of flavour.

Flavour duration is average. Flavour intensity is mild for a barrel aged imperial stout (blend).

Mouthfeel is rough and a bit dry up front, with a vinous coarse feel that is unbecoming. Would be bettered by a silky smooth texture and a creamy softness. Well-carbonated. Medium to full-bodied, with a chewiness that doesn't quite work.

OVERALL: De Molen's barrel aged beers are hit and miss. Sometimes you get a stellar brew like Hel & Verdoemenis and sometimes you get a peaty sticky undrinkable miss. This is somewhere in-between, but the resultant kinda-good-but-not-really effort fails to impress, and at this price (albeit, a factor I'd blame the Shelton Bastards for, not the brewery) that's pretty disappointing. It hides its ABV decently, but it's not the world class effort one might hope for in an imperial stout brewed for the likes of Monks Cafe. I'd advise friends to avoid it.

High C (3.00) / AVERAGE
Dec 25, 2016
 
Rated: 3.17 by SouthCrescent from Pennsylvania

Nov 22, 2016
Photo of RichardZen
Reviewed by RichardZen from Canada (AB)

4.36/5  rDev +10.1%
look: 3 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25
Appearance- Like an extremely dark brown flat coke.
Smell - Strong chocolate.
Taste - Chocolate and wood. Dry despite the chocolate. 11.4% alcohol, so quite strong.
Feel - Very smooth. Just a little bitterness but not too much. Not carbonated but that's okay.
Overall - Above average dark beer with complex chocolate and wood aromas.
Oct 26, 2016
 
Rated: 4.11 by Coronaeus from Canada (ON)

Sep 21, 2016
Photo of beergoot
Reviewed by beergoot from Colorado

4.04/5  rDev +2%
look: 3 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
Oil black body; very little head, mostly a thin wisp of light tan foam. Rich, malted aroma; licorice with figs and dates; chocolate nibs. Boozy and chocolate flavors. Heavy and viscous; sweet with an alcohol dryness.

All in all, a tasty, thick RIS. A thicker head would have been nice, but it's not unusual for high ABV beers to be weak in this area. Otherwise, you've got rich, dark goodness being delivered with every sip.
Aug 15, 2016
 
Rated: 4.04 by ClavisAurea from New York

Jul 16, 2016
 
Rated: 3.79 by Haybeerman from Colorado

Apr 09, 2016
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Reviewed by wordemupg from Canada (AB)

3.85/5  rDev -2.8%
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.75
330ml red waxed bottle poured into tulip 2/4/16

A the darkest brown liquid has a deep edge, noisy finger of tan foam fizzes out like cola leaving no lace

S JD type barrel with some brandy, vanilla, molasses, oak, has a strange ketchup thing going on that neither helps or hinders, lots of soft caramel and butterscotch, some candied cherry, more barrel I can't place

T spice and booze but for 11.4% its understandable, spiced rum barrel maybe? plum and raisin might be sugar coated, no ketchup but lots of virgin oak

M syrupy and little flat, some weight but also hot and fairly sticky, heaps of Tennessee Whiskys and soft caramel linger

O one of those beers that tries to be too many things at once but never really masters any of them. Smells and tastes solid but perhaps to much bending overwhelms what may have been some wicked base beers

I like it but I dont love it, hard to tweak something that tweaked right out. I'm getting the impression that i'd like some of the base beers better on their own without being blended
Apr 03, 2016
 
Rated: 4 by YvesB from Belgium

Mar 24, 2016
 
Rated: 3.81 by jaydoc from Kansas

Mar 11, 2016
 
Rated: 3.87 by Hohnbaum from Kansas

Mar 11, 2016
 
Rated: 3.75 by sweemzander from Illinois

Jan 05, 2016
Photo of Jeffo
Reviewed by Jeffo from Netherlands

3.47/5  rDev -12.4%
look: 3 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5
Got this one at the De Molen shop in Bodegraven.

From a bottle into a snifter
22*P
Bottled 27 March 2015
Best Before 27 March 2040

"This is a blend from (sic) several of our beers barrel aged in all kinds of oak barrels."

APPEARANCE: Pours out clear black and yields a small, half finger, medium looking, fizzy tan head with half-decent retention. Quickly fades to a swirly wisp and ring. Black body with no real carbonation evident. A slight wisp remains until the end but leaves no lacing down the glass.

SMELL: Lots of barrel here. Smells like oak, bourbon, rum, maybe cognac, and some light sour cherries. Don't know if that's on purpose but there's definitely a tart note in there. Hints of vanilla too, but very woody with a tart note in there.

TASTE: Oak, bourbon, cognac and some tannins up front. Big finish after the swallow with oak, wood, booze, bourbon and whisky, rum, cognac, milk chocolate, vanilla and some roasted malts. Notes of bitter pure chocolate as well. A bit of base flavor under all the barrels. It's hard to unravel but there's a lot there. The tart cherry note is not as prevalent here as it was in the nose.

PALATE: Medium body and medium levels of carbonation. Enough weight on the palate, goes down smooth enough and finishes sticky on the palate. No real heat lingers.

OVERALL: Nice stuff, but the slightly tart quality isn't all that appealing given the rest of the profile. The rest of the blend is really nice, with lots going on and the spirits all seem to come together nicely. A decent beer but not all it could be.
Dec 30, 2015
Cuvée #3 from Brouwerij De Molen
Beer rating: 88 out of 100 with 56 ratings