Saint & Sinner
Brouwerij De Molen

 

Brouwerij De Molen is quite intriguing - a Dutch brewer that does typical American styles, with what one would think is an appropriate amount of American hops... also I’m curious as to why they’ve label this beer as “IPA-ish”... is that some sort of disclaimer for when the beer tastes nothing like an IPA? They be like “see right there on the label ‘IPA-ish’ we never said it was an exact replication of the style did we?”. Who knows, I’ve only got 1 rule about beer: If it tastes good, who cares... oh yeah and rule 2: You DO NOT talk about Beer Club [Fight Club? We always talk about that at Beer C- aww, nice try!]. FYI: De Molen brew a 19% ABV Eisbock (appropriately) called “Epitaph”... wonder where I can get my hands on that?

Poured from a 330ml bottle into a nonic pint.

A: Major Gusher reporting for duty (which happens to be spilling all over my kitchen bench). Crazy amounts of yeast sediment - I would estimate this has gone through multiple secondary fermentations. Body is orange/brown with a massive 3 inch head that dropped down to 1 cm. Head colour is beige with brown yeast particles throughout. Yikes. 3/10.

S: Quite yeasty/malty - rye bread, raisins, brown sugar, fruit cake. Nary a hop detected, but this brew has obviously transformed dramatically from when it was first bottled. Overall aroma isn’t bad at all, though it’s clearly nowhere near an IPA aroma [guess that “-ish” came in handy]. 4/10.

T: Whereas most people would have tipped this down the sink on first glance - I am your intrepid beer explorer, I will wade into the jungle of multiple secondary fermentations, machete in hand, and bring back a golden idol [or die trying]. Flavour is very very yeasty (rye bread, musty and old) with hints of the above malt notes: raisins/brown sugar/fruit cake. Finish is a touch of a herbal bitterness. Not as terrible as expected but totally missing the style. 4/10.

M: One of the things about multiple secondary fermentation is they are quite gassy, this is no exception. Mid to light bodied. Carbonation is reasonably dense tho. 5/10.

D: Well this is certainly not representative of what the brewer intended, but I marks them as I tastes them, and this really really bombed big time due to the multiple secondary fermentations (that said it’s not the worst beer I’ve ever had)... perhaps I will find this one again in the future and give it another go - I generally do when this happens so fear not De Molen (just send me another). 4/10.

Food match: There’s so much yeast in this I could probably make some Vegemite...