Stouterik (The Brussels Stout)
Brasserie de la Senne

 

330 ml bottle, from Vaaland, Bryne. ABV is 4.5%. Very dark brown colour, nearly black. Moderate beige head. Aroma of mildly roasted malts, blackcurrants, chocolate and mild coffee. Light bodied as expected. Dry roasty flavour, notes of coffee, one-dimensional. A hint of berries in the finish, noticeable hops in the aftertaste.

330ml bottle from Beer Merchants (£2.95):
Opaque black with a thin, foamy lacing that's tan brown & covers the surface well. The nose is chocolate, slightly roasted dark malts with some caramel & sugars but it's not that complex. The taste is much the same, chocolate & roasted malts with a little coffee bitterness in there too. It's balanced but fairly basic with a medium, smooth body & subtle carbonation.

 

Nothin' but roast--very dark brown pour with a cream colored head that lasts and laces. Roast is king here--giving the beer depth but very little nuance or complexity. Perhaps a slight chocolate flavor struggles into the mix, but overall, very one-note.

#1682. Blind-tasted except for the beer's name and brewery/country, zero reviews below read (yet!)...
L- Super-dark ruby-red with a torch behind it, in normal daylight it's simply black. Poured with 15mm pale tan head of super-fine bubbles. The bottle had rested for 3 weeks but quite a lot of the notably large amount of sediment in the bottle lifted into the pour at the end. ps 15mins later, holds unusually well.
S- Smells quite deeply roasted, that's all I get.
T- Very deeply roasty-toasty, in fact I should have said 'really very...' as it in unusually prominent. This kind of very unusual pungency is something I associate with a solid ABV, like say 8-10%, which often brings a balance via the Feel. Not here though, the ABV% is clearly not so high at all. This leaves that roasty-toasty 'unbalanced' and very prominent. Well visible dry hops into the finish continue the theme. Unusual.
F- It's pretty hoppy-dry. The pungency/low ABV% leave it rather arid/austere to me.
O- Something different and you'd need to enjoy pungency of taste in it's own right without a balancing feel. I enjoy a solid black beer but this unbalance isn't working for me. I suspect it might work better for younger folk as the over-intense aspect here for me has parallels of the similar in say DIPA/TIPAs etc.
Review/scoring all done, now the reveal, I get to read the bottle lables to see what I missed! ==> 5%, 'Dry Stout'.
330ml bottle £2.95 BB: 16/07/2022 Bought from BeerMerchants, Kent/UK as part of a large pick-your own consignment to London.

 

 

 

 

From a tap at The Sovereign (Georgetown, DC), essentially no head with a dark brown, almost opaque color. Aroma of roasted malt with some yeast. Taste is also roasted malt forward with flavors of chocolate, roasted nuts, and fresh-ground coffee. Except for the price, I could drink this all day.

1 or 2 years old. Still enjoyable

 

 

another legendary beer from de la senne, who has definitely become one of my favorite breweries anywhere in the world. i always get so stoked to find ones from them i have never had before, usually dusty on some bottom warm shelf somewhere, which really doesnt seem to hurt their beer much if at all. this has a wonderful liveliness to it, interesting with the belgian yeast and the dark malts, and im surprised to see it is as low alcohol as it is, it has a dense, slow drinking speed to it despite the high carbonation and lighter then most american stouts roast profile. its got a deep brown color, no sediment at all, and a short but thick tan head, mocha colored almost. the aroma and flavor are awesome, faint oxidation meets impossibly dry dark grain, almost irish stout sort of dry and dark at the same time, but with a neat nuttiness in there too, a light cocoa powder aspect, and some amazing yeast that is belgian for sure but not real estery, super mature and completed in its fermenting work, and with a lightly wild element, not quite bretty but a little funky and interesting, its amazing all together, and each sip of this one wows me anew. a genre defining brew for me as a belgian stout goes, impressive depth and refinement. de la senne continue to kill it, it astounds me their beer doesnt get more attention...

Deep black color with a three-finger dark beige creamy head with great retention and leaving strong laces.
Nice aroma with lots of cocoa and dark chocolate and notes of coffee, lots of yeast, walnut and cream.
Flavor with notes of yeast, coffee, cocoa powder, walnut, raspberries, grassy and earthy hops, licorice, dark chocolate, cola, roasted and a bit of smoked malt and walnut. Quite dry aftertaste with a decent bitterness.
Deceivingly medium light body with appropriate carbonation.
Nice surprise. Belgians made this Irish Stout fun to drink and very flavorful. Lots of chocolate, very yeasty, complex and decently hopped. I would rather have this than a Guinness without a doubt.

 

Dark brown color with fluffy beige head. Aroma has sweet chocolate, cacao, light brown sugar and a light yeasty note. Taste is roasty, slightly acrid, dry, light to medium roasty bitterness on the finish. Light to medium body, medium to low carbonation. Feels quite watery and simple overall.

 

 

 

Bottle. Very dark brown. Thick tan head which gradually thins.
Medium aroma of sweet toasted malt.
Initial sweetness is dispersed by a bitter finish. Burnt toast.
Rather thin for a stout.

Once again, the eradication of the Bottle Backlog here at Chez Woody enables me to conduct a modest horizontal, this time with the beers of Brasserie de la Senne.

From the bottle: "Belgian Dark Ale - Hand Crafted & Refermented in the Bottle".

Once more, a clue! If it says that the beer is "Refermented in the Bottle", then it probably bears a gentle pour. After I had a sufficient amount decanted, I gave it an in-glass swirl to raise a finger of foamy, deep-tan/light-brown head that slowly reverted back to wisps. Color was Very Dark Brown to Black/Opaque (SRM = > 34, < 44) with burgundy highlights. Nose had the roastiness of coffee along with the bitterness of dark chocolate. Mmm. Mouthfeel was medium-to-full, not quite creamy, but nicely effervescent and big on the tongue. The taste, while dry, was more towards dark chocolate than coffee, although I did taste both flavors. I was reminded of coffee-infused chocolate, which I enjoy and prefer to standard, sweet milk chocolate. The finish was dry, in keeping with the style. I found this to be a very enjoyable beer, especially at it reasonable price point. I would certainly recommend it to others.

 

 

Bottled and drank with brie at mort subite
Jet black body with big foaming off white head that stays
Big liquorice aroma with some coffee and cocoa
Flavour I'd likewise

11.2 oz. bottle poured into snifter at brewery

L: classic black-and-tan stout look with black-looking liquid topped by 1-inch head of beige foam; sticks like paint on a wall and it does lace off a wide beige collar of foam; up to bright sun it'd dark brown and clear; an easy 5 ... perfect

S: roasty oak, molasses, peat -- sweetest peat smell I've come across, bleeding from peat into prunes, dates; as it warms, it opens up enough to push out some vanilla and mocha latte

T: roasted dirt ... very earthy and dry -- you can feel it sucking the moisture out of your mouth; oak wood aftertaste starts to build and build, then gets toasted and keeps building and then mixes with that earthy bitter opening flavor and becomes a BBQ-charred wood flavor that isn't sweet but has you reaching for the glass quickly to replenish, like an addictive potato chip session or a bag of Halloween candy you don't want to put down for fear mom and dad will take it from you; the way the flavor builds is interesting, then it reaches the point of a mocha latte with about 12 extra shots of espresso -- there's *something* in there, some kind of grain of sugar or something, but man do you have to fight through the bitter to get to it

F: light but well-filled out by carbonation ... and it has just a slight ale slickness to it; feels sturdy and well-made without being too heavy

O: Stouterik is stripped down but bold, simple but sophisticated -- its flavor spectrum that begins at bitter dirt and flows into wood, charred wood and a mega-espresso mocha is quite the journey for just 11 ounces of beer; there's no telling where this brew might take you over a full session, and I'd love to try a session of three or four, for even at it's most bitter, there's something in the flavor that keeps coaxing you to try; very interesting beer

 

 

 

33cl bottle.

L: Thick 3-finger head, black body with a deep red base.
S: Caramel, with just a bit of citrusy hops. Quite sweet. Some earthy malt too. A little too clean maybe.
T: Coffee and caramel, black cherry. A hint of bitterness.
F: Light carbonation, smooth and a little sticky at the same time.
O: Enjoyable stout with a nice aftertaste.

 

Listed in the "1001 Beers To Drink Before You Die," I will review it when I have it again.

 

 

Sampled back on 3/6/16. Comes in a 330ml (11.2 ounce) single bottle. Bottle chilled down to 36 degrees F in my beer cooler and poured in to a vintage "SONNEN GOLD-EX" pilsner glass.

Brew pours a pitch-black in color with close to a 3-finger foamy off-white head that lasted for a bit before settling down to around 5mm. A decent amount of lacing was seen with each sip. Aroma is of dark fruits, roasted malt with a hint of nuts. Taste is close to the aroma with a hint of light smoke and wood. Slight bitterness for the finish but didn't linger. Medium-bodied with lighter carbonation. Overall it as a decent brew that is worth a try