't Smisje Halloween
Brouwerij Smisje

 

Picked this one up during my trip to Belgium. According to the bottle, this beer is brewed with water, barley malt, candy sugar, pumpkin, hops and yeast. Bottle conditioned. Looks like it's best before third quarter of 2013 and is brewed 5 years before the "best by" date, fall of 2008.

Pours a luminous hazy orange with a thin but persistent snow white head. Smells of peppery spice, green apple and tangerine.

Alternately dry, sweet and spicy in the mouth. Dry up front, I suspect from the alcohol but it's not hot or boozy. Next the peppery and sweet spice takes over with black pepper, juniper berry and clove, perhaps a bit a ginger. The big sweetness washes all of the previous flavors away. Big fruity maltiness, sweetened apples and pears. Sweetish finish with a thin hop bitterness peeking out.

Big flavors here, all battling for attention. Somehow it all works. This is not a casual drinker, this is a beer that demands your attention. Worth a taste.

Pours a cloudy/ hazy orange-ish/ copper color with a small white head. In the aroma, a dry yeasty, alcohol flavor. In the taste, small alcohol and watery flavor. A small bitter and medium bodied mouthfeel, with a dry yeasty alcohol aftertaste. Belgian strong ale standard, yet being a bit watery.

Bottle @ Plan B, Copenhagen. Light gold color, with perfect Belgian foam. Great aroma of sweet wild mountain fruit. Lovely character and taste with sweet fruits, apple and plum. Unique, wild and pure Belgian. A lovely brew! Everything about this beer screamed Belgian.

Bottle: Poured a bright golden yellow color ale with a huge pure white foamy head with excellent retention and good lacing. Aroma of sweet malt is dominating. Taste is a mix between some sweet malt and some distinctive Belgian yeast with some traces of warming alcohol. Body is about average with some great carbonation and a bit too much of alcohol. I couldn’t detect any pumpkin, which either means that there aren’t really I it to begin with or the amount is so insignificant that it is impossible to taste. Overall, I though this reminded me of Piraat.

Bought this at Bitter Virtue, my local beer store in Southampton UK. Though my Flemish is poor, I could make out 'pumpkin' on the label and by that time I couldn't put it back on the shelf. The overall sensation is sweet - like candy or raw sugar. I didn't pour very carefully but any how the result was quite cloudy and orange. Left a finger or so of head. Not much spice flavours - quite fruity and very sweet like raw candy sugar or golden syrup rather than molasses/honey/pure sugar. 10.5% though not overpowering - little of the dryness of most beers of this strength.
Fun arty label on the bottle as I come to expect from this brewery. Obviously a bit of a novelty but not one which I regret indulging.

Light orange color, nice head that hardly last much. Smell of sugar cane, some orange, spices and yes, some pumpkin. In the mouth I feel sugar cane again (too much in the finish), coriander, fruits (though I can not really say one) and pumpkin. Wine, wood.

Color was dark amber, with disappearing head.
smell: alcoholic, straw, solvent (like Westmalle)
Taste: alcoholic, bitter, thin body, sticky, hoparoma which appears after the beer warms up. Aftertaste is dry and alcoholic. Not a very well balanced beer, too much alcohol.
According to the label this beer is brewed with pumpkin and lagered on pumpking seeds, but this is not very apparent in the taste.
Not a bad beer, but when the beer would have less alcohol or more bitterness and body, it would make it better.

Oranged colour, with a quite thin foam, not too high, and not too persistent.
Sweet smell, malty, caramel. Alcohol. Lightly syrupy. A sweet and orange fruity.
At the taste is more bitter, and again fruity.
Very sweet aftertaste, with honey and caramel, and fruit. Lightly mitigated by a little bitter.
A lot of alcohol; not harmonic.
Medium body. Alcohol.