Established in 2021

Stroom Brouwers

Microbrewery in Gent, East Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Associated Venue: Stroom Brouwers


Forelstraat 27
Gent
9000

[email protected]


Though one is from America and the other from Belgium, the story of Stroom started in Kyrgyzstan where the two founders met over a decade ago. Years later Farrell’s experience with brewing and love of craft beer and Carl’s history as a life-long Gentenaar and entrepreneur brought them together to form a brewery in Gent.

Farrell’s home town back in Colorado was named after the confluence of the Colorado and Grand rivers. As luck would have it, Gent is also named after the confluence of two rivers, one of which runs right past the brewery. It was playing with this happy coincidence that brought us to Stroom – a place for creative connection.

 


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7.5
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5

33cl can, BB 04/10/2024.
Pâle, léger voile, col épais crémeux blanc.
Arôme est frais, mentholé, orange, melon, pointe d’ananas avec un léger effet thé noir en rétro-nasal, fruits à noyaux dont la pêche.
Palais est sur une solide IPA classique – tropicale, pêche, agrumes, petite note malt caramel avec effet barbe à papa. Floral dont un effet pot-pourri, ananas qui donne une fine note acidulée, léger pin voire résine en toute fin de bouche.

Tried from Can from Dynamo - Cave De Soif on 04 Mar 2024 at 15:54


6.6
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

33cl can, BB 23/09/2024.
Dorée, col épais crémeux blanc.
Arôme est léger boisé, fruité orange, floral avec un nez sur les céréales – wheat assez plaisant.
Palais sur une ‘wheat ale’ correcte, style pas souvent proposé. Grains sont bien présents, orange, léger aiguille de pin, douceur fruitée en fin de bouche.

Tried from Can from Dynamo - Cave De Soif on 04 Mar 2024 at 15:54


6.3
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

33cl can, BB 14/10/2024.
Dorée, col épais crémeux blanc.
Arôme sur un houblonné plutôt floral – fleur de jasmin avec une note diacetyle de la levure américaine – effet aussi un peu sur les esters.
Palais est malté pâle/pils pour une bière naviguant entre style belge et américain. Sec sur les céréales, je peine à vraiment retrouver le côté ‘fresh hops’, et je note plutôt fermentée des houblons. Fini léger sur le caramel.

Tried from Can from Dynamo - Cave De Soif on 04 Mar 2024 at 15:48


7.2
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Pitch black beer with a small tan head. Aroma of strong dark roasted malt, whiskey, coffee, wood. Taste of strong dark malt, coffee, wood, whiskey, some dried fruits.

Tried on 21 Dec 2023 at 16:45


7
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

Slightly hazy golden beer with a white head. Aroma of tropical fruits, citra, oranges, grapefruit. Taste of intense citrusy hops, tropical fruits, grapefruit, oranges, some blood orange is present. Moderate to long bitter finish.

Tried on 20 Dec 2023 at 10:27


7.6
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

New ’wintery’ beer by Stroom in Ghent, a strong stout aged in both whisky and rum barrels; launched only recently, this one was already available – canned – at café De Redding in the Brugse Poort quarter in the northwest of Ghent. Moussy, pale yellowish beige, medium thick, opening head on a jet black beer. Aroma of dry old raisins, melting ‘fondant’ chocolate, cappuccino, old oak wood (even oak furniture), whisky indeed while rum remains less noticeable, fig compote, pipe tobacco, caramel. Densely sweet but ‘rounded’ and clean onset, raisins (or ‘boerenjongens’) again, candied dates, soft carb with full, oily mouthfeel; bittersweet black-chocolatey, dry-caramelly and pecan-nutty core with toasty edges but clearly more sweetness than bitterness, even hints of candied cherries, dark brown honey and latté. Lightly drying tannins with clear ‘oakiness’ retronasally, along with a peppery hop kick and warming, eventually somewhat tiresome and astringent alcohol, again much more whisky-like than rum-like. Bitter chocolate and roasted bitter coffee elements linger, but the sweetness always remains a tad stronger than the bitterness – clearly an American style ‘impy’ was intended here, a mission well executed, even if still a bit crude and boozy perhaps. Probably improves with more age on it so stack a few of these cans away in a cellar and see what becomes of them in a year or so. For now: indulgent, sweet, boozy stout, solid enough and fit for this gloomy time of the year.

Tried on 30 Nov 2023 at 15:22


7.1
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5

The second rendition of 'Schol', a beer brewed with fresh green hop cones from hops grown in the neighbouring Macharius quarter in Ghent, this time also containing wheat produced by IJzerkotmolen, an actual old windmill commercially exploited in Zwalm, south of Ghent. It illustrates how much Stroom supports short chain economy and local ingredients. Only released two weeks ago, I stumbled on this can while browsing the local beers sold in the shop in the cellar of the Lakenhalle, adjacent to the Ghent belfry, a lovely place in the historic heart of the old city of which I am a proud inhabitant myself. Audibly fizzing, egg-white, very moussy, regular, lightly lacing, slowly thinning and dissipating head over a misty pale ochre-ish-tinged yellow blonde beer with some minute, disparate bubbles distributed evenly. Aroma of freshly baked cookies, roux right before the milk is added to create béchamel, breakfast cereals, dry biscuits, sweetclover, diacetyl (buttermilk), vague clay, hints of honey, chamomile, vanilla somewhere and meadowsweet (subtle floral touches from the aforementioned hops). Sweetish, bit juicy onset, fruity aspects of apple slices, unripe apricot, pear and a very faint background touch of pineapple (ester), soft in carbonation, minerally hints through a slick, bit thinnish, bit doughy and cereally, cookie-ish maltiness with residual honeyish sweetishness on top (very thinly so) and an undertone of diacetyl (buttermilk, including its sourishness), the latter doubtlessly due to the fact that I am having this very young. The hops too remain subtle and light, with delicate floral notes and only basic bitterishness; I understand that these are apparently wild (botanical) hops instead of a specific variety, which explains the low rate of alpha acids and therefore lack of bitterness, which could have given this beer more character. The diacetyl, now still very obvious, will probably fade after a while so maybe I will have to drink this again later, but the hops will of course not increase in bitterness (on the contrary) so I wonder what will be left of this very delicate, thin, tenuous beer by then; in this form, too young clearly, but very easily drinkable and unassuming, truly an easygoing neighbourhood beer with little to no ambitions outside of its own Heirnis and Macharius quarters.

Tried on 03 Nov 2023 at 12:57


7.8
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Amber ale brewed with wheat and millet - a grain species very rarely seen in beer even today - to create an 'ancient' feel, intended to refer to the 18th-century 'uytzet' beer of the greater Ghent area - an interesting concept reminiscent of certain similar experiments by Dok Brewing Company, located about a mile and half north of where Stroom is situated in Ghent. Thick, very regular and dense, creamy, membrane-lacing, silky, yellowish egg-white, rocky, very firm and only slowly diminishing head on an initially near-clear warm orange blonde beer with pale amberish tinge and fine sparkling throughout, misty with sediment. Aroma of halfripe apricot, wet toast, wholegrain bread crust, green melon, unsalted peanuts, rosewater, fresh croissants on Sunday morning, apple peel, young mugwort leaf, bird seed (or indeed millet). Fruity onset but in a well-measured way and not wildly estery, hinting at unripe peach, apricot, green melon and apple peel, sweetish but not quite, with finely tingling carbonation effectuating a minerally fraîcheur in the background; very rounded, almost lightly creamy, slick mouthfeel. Wheaty soapiness balanced against toasty and lightly peanutty barley breadiness and rounded graininess from the (toasted) millet, mellow fruity notes lingering until more toasty bitterness with a grainy-sweet character (the millet again) gains the upper hand, drying up the finish with the aid of a leafy, peppery, slightly earthy, lingering hop bitterness. Ends fruity, a bit yeasty, toasty and hop bitter, all in perfect balance with each other. I tend to agree with Nathan below that this is among Stroom's most refined and perfectly balanced beers so far, it conveys the near-forgotten historical uytzet associations in a modern, sleek, intelligent way. Beautiful little beer - its sheer 'beeriness' cleverly and almost paradoxically accentuated by a very unbeery ingredient.

Tried on 03 Nov 2023 at 12:56


6.3
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 5.5 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6

Medium, stable white head over clear darker golden beer with fine carbonation. Sweet citrus, almonds, amandine, peach, somewhat liqueurish, rosewater. Oxydation, oxydated malts (BBd + 2 months!), dark & dry malts and bread. Again almonds, rosewater. Light (?!) to medium bodied, good carbonation, quite slick. Ho-hum. Txs to Stef!

Tried from Can on 29 Oct 2023 at 09:08


7.9
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Bouteille @ BXLBeerFest'23, jour 2.
Acajou, col fin crémeux blanc-cassé.
Arôme sur un bouquet belge bien plaisant avec de légers esters – fruits secs (raisins) et rouge en rétro-nasal, apport discret de la barrique de rhum – le tout sur un léger nez frais de booze, pointe de caramélisé et biscuité.
Palais sur une belle base bien belge de quad – esters fruités de bananes, grains malté sur le biscuité, caramel avec une note de fruits rouges et secs. L’apport de la barrique de rhum donne un fini léger sur le boisé, et ce côté très frais du rhum – petite note organique de sucre résiduel – venant peut-être du rhum mais sans pour cela verser dans un rappel tropical ? Je note aussi un fini léger en amertume avec l’apport des houblons.
Une belle réussite qui ne cherche pas à avoir une domination à outrance de la barrique.

Tried from Bottle on 01 Oct 2023 at 09:58


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