Cuvee Oscar
De Struise Brouwers

750 mL bottle. Pours inky black with no head. Smells intensely roasty. Chocolate. Bourbon. Alcohol. Tastes a little less intense, but still very roasty. Chocolatey, very oaky. Dry and bitter chocolate. Alcohol in the finish. Low carbonation and very heavy. Delicious, as Cuvee Delphine always is, though it’s pretty flat.

A 750ml bottle, 2015 vintage, limited edition cask strength Cuvée Oscar, bottled on 24th November 2016. Poured into a De Struise tulip glass.

Appearance: Dark brown to black in colour with pretty much no head and no lacing.

Aroma: Sweet, bourbon, caramel, oak, vanilla, boozy, with light chocolate notes.

Taste: Sweet, bourbon, oak, brown sugar, caramel, vanilla, chocolate, and licorice.

Mouthfeel: Full bodied with soft carbonation.

Overall: A nice enjoyable sipper, although I prefer the original Cuvée Delphine more.

 

This one pours a very dark black color, with a super fleeting weak head, and no lacing. The carbonation looks fairly minimal here.

This smells like sharp and strong bourbon, black cherry, cocoa powder, a slight saltiness, and tons of oak.

This is quite bracing, and pretty challenging. There is tons of barrel here - leathery, tobacco(y) and sharp bittersweet caramel, plus tons of oak. The stillness only seems to amplify the barrel intensity. There's lots of chocolate and tons of dried dark fruit - cherry, raisin, what have you.

It's somewhat light bodied, and the lack of carbonation does the body no favors, unfortunately. It's an extremely slow sipper.

The flavors here are intense and great - but almost too intense. A bit more carbonation would have helped this a lot.

Let me start off by saying historically I have been a big fan of most of the brews Struise creates. When I learned about this tribute beer to Oscar who suffers from ALS, I had to have it. Cheers to my friend Pete whom is also battling the same debilitating disease.

750ml bottle poured into a struise damnation taster appears black in color with a countable amount of bubbles that fail to formulate a head but somehow leaves spots of lace after each sip.

Aroma is peculiar in a sense that this seems more like a young, under-developed belgian strong ale than anything like the stout it claims to be both on the label and visually. It smells fruity like candy sugar and not much else.

Taste has a very green almost peppery aspect to it before getting fruity like raisons, molasses, earth and grass. No barrel aspect to speak of other than a light mustiness that isnt quite desirable.

Medium in body, light to no carbonation. Honestly, I love the tribute and story on the label but this beer is not that good. If it was cheaper I might buy more to age or try again but considering the price on most all of the Struise 750ml bottles these days, its just not worth it.

Great beer, cheers to Oscar, who unfortunately has lost the fight against cancer :(