Eiken Artois
Stella Artois

 

330ml bottle has best before end date of December 2008 so it just scrapes through....The beer has a rather orange hue with no discernible head at all. It looks rather like a nice copper coloured beer that has been hugely diluted! Has a slightly figgy, slightly yeasty nose, rather like most bocks I've had the misfortune (generally speaking, occasionally it was good fortune) to tipple.

Despite pinprick bubbles it has a very watery feel which I don't like at all. As far as the taste goes this is one of those beers where nothing happens and there is little to say. I have to search for any hoppiness on my tongue after the event, and there is a little skunky sweetness at the midway point, but there is really nothing positive here. This may not the worst beer I've reviewed here, but it must be the least interesting.

Coming in a pack of four, discounted due to being discontinued at my local Tesco supermarket. BB 02/2009, served chilled in a straight pint glass.

A: reddish golden to light amber hue, clear, coming with a fast-dissipating off-white foamy head and a mixed carbonation of tiny and giant bubbles at play.
S: messy, metallic, semi-juicy pale malts, a lightly sweet touch of oak-wood and very faint in everything else.
T: the overall messy flavour profile is a bit like a watered-down Czech premium pilsner with a bit more metallic touch and much less sour doughs, added with scattered bitterness of grassy hops and caramalt-like sweetness lingering underneath, an herbal edge of (maybe) oak-ageing, and finished with powdery mouthfeel of something lightly sweet...
M&D: not crazily fizzy but still spritzy on the mouthfeel, thin-bodied and watery towards the finish; this oak-aged lager is even less drinkable than the normal Stella Artois, as the crisp texture is definitely lost here due to the acclaimed "oak-ageing"? But then the oak-ageing fails to make a positive impression. Verdict: neither horrible, nor recommended.

Part of a six pack, this green 33cl bottle was given to me by my Son-in-Law to be.

Poured into a Duvel glass, it was an amber colour with a good white head. Clear and bright, it looked like a Dort style lager beer.

The normal nothing aroma of a lager passed me by.

Oak aged my arse, this is a normal lager apart from the deeper colour. The taste you would expect from a mass produced product was evident from the first sip. Nothing bad or evil about it, just a so-so lager with labelling that doesn't tell you a thing, but hints at something special. If I had drank this at a blind tasting I wouldn't have detected any Oak, or ageing. I would have thought, 'this is a darker lager than normal'.

Mouthfeel was watery and weak, it also began to feel metalic towards the end of the drink.

Not a great drinking experience, but Artois products rarely are.

A new one from Artois. This is dubbed an "oak aged lager".

Appearance: pale gold, great clarity, lots of bubbles but no head formation though

Aroma: lagery malt profile with a vague hint of oak, leather, and perfumey hopes

Flavor: medium malt sweetness; a bit of a fruity quality like strawberry shortcake (only faintly); herbally hop flavor and a mild bitterness; finishes dry with a fruity aftertaste

Mouthfeel: medium body, sparkly carbonation, crisp

Other comments: Though this is supposedly aged in oak, I can't say that I'd be able to pick it out if I didn't know about it. It's a decent enough drinking lager, though. Too bad it's in these tiny 33cl bottles!