Rook & Vuur
Brouwerij De Molen

 

 

Medium body & carbonation. Really smokey feel, plus a barrel taste. Dried/ smoked plums. Intense aftertaste. Simply great!

 

From old, undated notes. Poured from the bottle.

Dark brown hue; tons of dark khaki sediment.

HUGE khaki head (careful pouring!); minimal lace.

Strong smoke nose, with hints of bacon.

Medium mouthfeel.

Smoke up front, very mild heat on the finish-one note, not real memorable.

 

 

Served in a goblet from the bottle.

Appearance: Thin brown to black body had a tan head rising subtle at maybe half a fingers length.

Smell: Smoked BBQ scent with hints of cooked meat. Awkward scent which reminds me of a Rauch Bier.

Taste: Smokey brew, feels like I'm drinking a shish kebab on the grill with hints of coffee and black pepper. Confusing to the palates.

Mouth: sticky body with medium carbonation and burnt wood finish.

Overall: Good brew but I will never drink it alone. From now on, with a steak or pork chop. You'll understand when you get this lucky. Salud!

Good dose of smoke here. The burning part of the chili is totally out of place for my taste. Is combines with the acidity of the alcohol. Lacks body. I like the smoke but not the rest.

On-tap served in a pint glass at Wishbeer, Bangkok.

Very deep murky brown to black in color, it comes with thick fluffy light khaki head that is here to stay with excellent retention before slowly subsiding to an eternal frothy crown and leaving unbeatable amount of sticky lacing all around.

In a nose, it is heavily smoked that reminds me of smoked bacon and somewhat meaty bbq-like. Chili is a nice complement with its mild peppery spice. Roasted malt is of course there too together with the suggestion of chocolate, caramel, burnt bread, and charred nut.

The taste is exactly just like the aroma with all the flavors of smoked bacon, smoked bbq meat, peat, mild chili pepper, roasted and toasted, chocolate, caramel, burnt bread, charred nut, as well as bitterness from both roasted and hop profile. Complex and tasty.

Rather full and thick body with creamy smooth mouthfeel and moderate crisp carbonation, the feeling is just right and well-rounded with a pleasantly dry finish.

Quite complex with heavily smoked and roasted profile yet not that easy to drink but would be good and very tasty if you are able to get into it.

 

 

 

 

 

An impressive (and very underrated) beer. A solid Rauchbier, and one of the few beers in which chili is a welcome ingredient. De Molen seems to have found the sweet spot in which a subtle touch of chili adds to the beer (I've yet to try a beer before this one in which the spicy heat did anything but detract from an otherwise well-done base beer). Dark, with a good malt body, and just the right amount of heat.

 

 

330ml bottle - dubbed a smoked/spiced stout, without specifying any sort of spice agent in the ingredient list.

This beer pours a rather hazy, dark brown colour, with a gushing amount of puffy, finely foamy, and creamy beige head, which leaves some chunky falling volcanic ash lace around the glass as it slowly melts away.

It smells of pungent meaty smoke, iodine, burnt rubber, wet wood, salt, grainy roasted caramel malt, and a small vegetal astringency. The taste is semi-sweet chocolate, gritty caramel malt, cured meat, Islay whisky in all its hard to love glory, black licorice, more scorched pavement rubber, a faint spicy vegetal heat, and a bit of charred coffee bean.

The carbonation is quite heavy-handed in its mouth-filling frothiness, the body an adequate medium weight, and not too bad in terms of smoothness, as long as you're okay with a big ol' dose of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the pervasive smoky elements, I suppose. It finishes off-dry, with a lessening of the Big Smoke (sorry, Toronto) and spicy essences, alongside the lingering complex maltiness.

Smoke and Fire is certainly an appropriate moniker for this intense offering - everything that Hel & Verdoemenis barrel-aged with Bruichladdich was not. Yeah, the smoked and whisky malts employed here must be from the Scottish isles, or from somewhere with a slavish appreciation for them. Anyways, one hell of a smoked brew, as along with the still unknown spice, the underlying stout doesn't get much love.

Poured into pint.
Pours opaque dark brown with 2-finger tan head, moderate retention.
Smell - phenolic, peppery, smoked, whisky smokiness, ball pen ink, milk.
Taste - milk chocolate, coffee, whisky, chile pepper, licorice.
Medium body and carbonation.
Powerful stout as any other from De Molen.