Steenbrugge Abdij Bock
Brouwerij Palm NV

 

 

Bottle at home. Thick tan head that gives way to a thin lacing. Notes of dried fruit, caramel, sugar, light spices. Medium body, light carbonation and a sugary sweet finish.

 

Veel koffie. Vrij zoet maar te overheersend

 

Dark brown ruby colour with a small lacing of foam that quickly evaporates. Fairly weak smell of caramel, malt and spices. I have some mixed feelings about the taste. It seems to be stacked with herby flavours (liquorice, mint, apple syrup), which is a good thing in my opinion, but it's also a bit too sweet for my liking. The typical bittersweet taste is basically just sweet with this bock. The mouth feel is good though, and it is quite warming, which is an achievement for a 6.5 abv beer served at 4 degrees Celsius. Nice touch to put gruit in a bock: with some tweaking (less sweet, more bitter), this could be quite a stunner. Just don't call it a bock though.

Edit: Had a new one and it seems like they changed the recipe. This was a decent belgian dubbel (not a bock though) last time i drank it, but now it tasted like a Leffe Blond with caramel. Some coffee notes in the first sips, but after that, a chemical spicy flavour dominates the taste that remains after the carbonation has blocked the rest. Smell also has this malty chemical sweetness. Not good, lowered the scores to reflect this.