ZUIDerbierke
Brouwerij Donum Ignis

 

Bottle of 33cl bought about a year ago from the Belgian beer museum; use-by label wasn’t filled out but listed dates up to 2017. Poured into a tulip glass with a reddish brown root beer color, quite opaque, with a lingering head of creamy, sabayon-looking beige head; both inflected with lots of sediment appearing brown on the foam and white within the liquid. The smell is of caramel-making, toast, anise, black pepper, with a bit of pear or apricot hidden in there as I squint and think hard. In the mouth, lashings of sweet root-beery malt come to the fore, with a bit of pepper and anise spice in the mix, then gentle hops — too gentle for some contemporary palates? — just borne up at the end with a puff of bubbles bursting. Before that wash of effervescence at the end, the feel is a bit unexpected thin; overall, quaffable rather than substantial.