Category Archives: 1 – Poor (never again)

1 - Poor (never again), Beer Reviews, Belgium, Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck N.V., Fruit Beer

Bacchus Kriekenbier

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Brewery: Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck N.V.
Country: Belgium
ABV: 5.8%
Style: Fruit Beer
Other Notes: 15% cherries, beer flavoured with cherries, beer with sugar and sweetener, contains barley malt and wheat.

Brewer Description: (from wrapping) Van Honsebrouck is a family owned brewery in West Flanders Belgium. It makes a range of beers including Bacchus, a beer in the local style of the region. This is the beer on which kriek is based, as well as framboise, a premium fruit beer for which Belgium is well known. Hand wrapped and presented in half champagne bottles, these are remarkable beers.

My rating: 1
My beeradvocate.com rating: 3.17
My ratebeer.com rating: 2.8

Intro: A 375ml wrapped bottle with a best before date of 22nd May 2016 and poured into an oversized wine glass.
Appearance: The beer poured a clear deep ruby colour with a one finger very light pink head that dissipated slowly ending in patches of foam and nice lacing.
Aroma: Mainly sweet cherry and raspberry. Basically candy berry smells.
Taste: Sweet tart cherry, a little bit artificial but getting to the cough syrup flavours that I like so much.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with light to medium carbonation.
Overall: This was nice, although maybe a little on the sweet side. However unfortunately, according to the wrapping, it seems they add Stevia to the beer. I don’t use sugar substitute sweeteners in anything ever, and I don’t see why I need to start doing so in beers.

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1 - Poor (never again), Abashiri Beer, Beer Reviews, Fruit Beer, Japan

Abashiri Oto no Shizuku (Cherry Drops)

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Brewery: Abashiri Beer
Country: Japan
ABV: 5%
Style: Fruit Beer
Other Notes: Happoshu based. Brewed in Hokkaido.

Brewer Description: Its in Japanese, which I unfortunately cannot read…

My rating: 1
My beeradvocate.com rating: 2.19
My ratebeer.com rating: 1.9

Intro: A 330ml bottle dated best before 28th October 2015 and poured into a pint glass.
Appearance: The beer poured a slightly hazy dull pinkish red colour with a half finger head that disappeared almost immediately.
Aroma: Strong aromas of candied cherry, some bubblegum, cherry syrup.
Taste: Immediate taste of candied cherry (like cherry soda) but then all of a sudden less than 2 seconds later, it all disappears. You’re expecting some sweetness or something, but its not there at all. It pretty much becomes like extremely watered down cherry water.
Mouthfeel: Light bodied with light carbonation.
Overall: I saw cherry, and I didn’t need any more persuasion to buy this beer. This beer was happoshu based and there’s nothing wrong with that. I also enjoy cough medicinal flavours, and this kind of had this at first, but then it disappeared even quicker. Watered down cherry water, that’s what I got… it started off fine and then just fell off. I don’t know how I finished the whole thing… It was also damn expensive at around USD4 a bottle. Not worth it at all, save your money!

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abashiri oto no shizuku (cherry drops) 4

1 - Poor (never again), Beer Reviews, Farmhouse Saison, Omnipollo, Sweden

Omnipollo Bacchanale

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Brewery: Omnipollo
Country: Sweden
ABV: 6%
Style: Saison
Other Notes: Brewed for Omnipollo at De Proef Brouwerij in Belgium.

Brewer Description: (from website) I first came across good beer working at a bar chain called The Bishop’s Arms. Last year we were asked to make a celebratory beer for their 20th anniversary. Bacchanale is a sparkling farmhouse ale brewed with Saaz, Galaxy and brett.

My rating: 1
My beeradvocate.com rating: 2.38
My ratebeer.com rating: 2.1

Intro: Corked and caged 375ml bottle with unfortunately no bottled or best before date. Poured into a Duvel tulip glass.
Appearance: The beer poured a very hazy burnt orange colour with quite a bit of yeast sediment with a half finger white head. Normally I’m ok with sediment but for some reason, this time it didn’t look too good.
Aroma: Given its appearance, its aromas became more important to me in determining whether something was wrong. But actually it smelled quite good. A strong whiff of citrus sour lemon mixed with some barnyard brett.
Taste: However its taste left something to be desired as it was mainly acidic sour citrus lime, lemon, orange and bitter pine. It started out ok but the aftertaste was not.
Mouthfeel: Thin to medium bodied, but well carbonated almost like soda water. Also left a dry finish.
Overall: I normally enjoy saisons, but I just did not get this at all. I wish there was at least a bottled or best before date on the bottle to indicate its freshness, but there was none. I also saw no indication of anything wrong with it and its aroma seemed fine, so I can only say that tastewise this particular brew from Omnipollo was just not for me.

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1 - Poor (never again), American Double IPA, Beer Reviews, Evil Twin Brewing, USA

Evil Twin Molotov Cocktail

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Brewery: Evil Twin Brewing
Country: USA
ABV: 13%
Style: Double IPA
Other Notes: Brewed at Two Roads Brewing Company, Stratford, CT, USA for Evil Twin

Brewer Description: (from bottle) Did you like Before, During and after Christmas, maybe you thought it poured brilliantly, the alcohol was admirable will hidden and you loved how the arrogant amounts of hops numbed your mouth. This beer will knock your tongue off – it’s a tour de force in hoppiness and by far one of the craziest beer ever made by Evil Twin Brewing.

My rating: 1
My beeradvocate.com rating: 2.43
My ratebeer.com rating: 2.3

Intro: Poured from a 12oz bottle into La Chouffe tulip glass. 169:14 is printed at the bottom of the neck of the bottle so I assume that bottle date is the 169th date of 2014 which happens to be 18 June 2014.
Appearance: It poured a nice orangey gold colour with less than one finger head which receded quite quickly leaving some lace on the glass.
Aroma: Sweet malts with some light citrus and orange coming through.
Taste: Sweet. Too sweet. Like lightly carbonated orange cordial, some honey and maybe bubblegum. One thing going for it is that even at 13%, you don’t notice the alcohol at all. Some of the hoppiness does creep through the sweetness at times but not much.
Mouthfeel: Sticky, full bodied, light carbonation.
Overall: Now around 9 months from date of bottling, maybe some hoppiness was lost? But this was way too overly sweet for me. At first I thought that maybe I could enjoy half a bottle every so often, but the more and longer I think about it, I really couldn’t. Way too sweet.

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