Alengrin
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Alengrin
added a new beer
Proof #1
by
Stroom Brouwers
1 year ago
Setting - 8 | Selection - 7 | Service - 8 | Food - | Value - 7 | Overall - 8
Dutch drinks shop located in Vlissingen, with not just craft beer, but other alcoholic drinks as well, including wine and liquor. Stumbled upon this by coincidence when searching for a Sierra Nevada beer, made a small online order and got it two days later in perfect condition. No complaints at all, very smooth service, reasonable prices – I will likely check this one again some day, and perhaps visit the physical store as well, when in Vlissingen or nearby.
Setting - 8 | Selection - 8 | Service - 8 | Food - | Value - 8 | Overall - 8
Young craft beer pub located at the Schelde quay in the city of Antwerp, not far from the Steen castle – not a shabby location to have a craft beer outdoors on the terrace in summer. This location may explain the prices too, because some beers were really very expensive (think upwards of 10 € to even 15 € for individual bottles or cans of strong stouts and barleywines), more so than average. Service was very friendly, helpful and efficient, even though the young lady who took our first order did not quite understand which beers we wanted even if they were the first ones on the (virtual) menu… Pleasant vibe inside, apart from a toilet odour (and I do not mean toilet perfume) hanging around everywhere, possibly linked to the rainy weather or something. All in all, this place seems to be suffering from growing pains a bit, but I am confident that it can only get better over time and I will certainly visit it again next time I’m in Antwerp.
Setting - 9 | Selection - 7 | Service - 8 | Food - | Value - 8 | Overall - 7
Another of the new generation of beer pubs gracing the city of Antwerp, located at the Schelde quay on the corner with Suikerrui, which many will remember for the Gollem craft beer pub which was located there years ago, until it ceased its activities. This one felt very welcoming: enthusiastically welcoming and friendly staff, a kind of typical ‘Antwerp brown pub’ feel and a rotating beer menu; highlight of the day were the lambic beers of Oud Beersel at the time I visited. Ample space outside too when the weather allows for it. Too bad I did not have the time but I could easily spend a few hours here chugging some good beers.
Setting - 9 | Selection - 8 | Service - 7 | Food - | Value - 9 | Overall - 8
New and hip craft beer place in the Eilandje quarter in the north of Antwerp, successfully made cosy; not very spacious, but it seems the space they have has been used efficiently enough. Rotating menu – not hundreds of beers, but enough craft beers from Belgium and abroad, some of which I never had before. Also has a fridge full of craft beer cans (and bottles) to take away. Very likeable, one I would love to revisit on a nice spring or summer day.
Setting - 8 | Selection - 8 | Service - 9 | Food - | Value - 8 | Overall - 8
Young and very enthusiastic webshop in Belsele, a village located next to Sint-Niklaas; erected in full Covid-19 pandemic, like many other new beer webshops in fact. Tends to specialize in limited offerings from breweries in the wider region - a region teeming with interesting breweries, I might add, and I especially liked the fact that absolute rarities appear on this site, along with the usual suspects. Prices are decent and service (by owner Sander) is extremely helpful and responsive. I highly recommend this eclectic newcomer - though I should probably not, because who knows how quickly the most limited beers sell out if the word spreads...
Alengrin
added a new venue
Poseidon Beers
located in Belsele, Belgium
1 year ago
Setting - 10 | Selection - 6 | Service - 9 | Food - | Value - 9 | Overall - 7
Where to begin with this one… Starting off as a publicity platform for the natural wines and sakes which founder Hans Dusselier was already collecting and selling, the church of the village of Kwatrecht in between Melle and Wetteren southeast of Ghent is his property meanwhile, and now fully operational as the production site for this own range of Heilig Hart beers. With the help of his son Victor, simple gravity is used as a means of transport in the brewing process – in itself neither new nor unique, of course, but doing this in a neogothic church symbolically rising up to the heavens adds a whole new dimension to this old principle. While the first Heilig Hart beers (“In de Naam van de Vader”) are solid enough but classically top-fermented, the more recent generations (“In de Naam van de Zoon” and “In de Naam van de Heilige Geest”) are complex, intelligent and ambitious plays on fermentation and maturation techniques, drawing inspiration from lambic, natural wine and other beverages, and though experimental, never fail to impress with their unique approach to what sour ale can be. I silently hope this place and its sour ales will never become as hyped as Bokke, Antidoot or Bofkont for perhaps rather egocentric reasons (i.e. being able to get my hands on them), but I am the first to acknowledge that these creations deserve all the attention from the beer world – and, as seems to be the intention, the gastronomic world in general – they can get. With more and more church buildings becoming ‘profaned’ in recent years and consequently being given various non-religious functions, I think there is a good chance that more of these ‘church breweries’ (Jopenkerk in Haarlem, Netherlands probably being the most famous of them now) will pop up in the near future, as will churches containing supermarkets, book markets and so on; but I think the Dusseliers will continue to have a particularly enchanting place even if this trend expands. A visit to the Kwatrecht church, quite easily reachable from Ghent or Brussels by train, is a pilgrimage every serious beer (or sake, or natural wine) lover should undertake at least once. Beautiful place on many different levels, clearly run with great love, passion and knowledge, I recommend.
Alengrin (10989) reviewed Blanche from Brasserie Elfique 1 year ago
Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
The witbier in this series, classically flavoured with curaçao and coriander seed; Vichy bottle from a Delhaize supermarket. Egg-white, medium thick and frothy, moussy head, gradually breaking and dissolving over a misty yellow-golden blonde robe with disparate sparkling. Aroma of dried lemon peel, cilantro (more leaf than seed in this case, actually), old cardboard, unripe green banana, straw bale, old dried out white bread, pear peel, lemonbalm from an old herbarium, minerals, hints of gypsum, white soap, honey, green apple and dust. Fruity onset, lemon-scented hand soap note mingled with impressions of green pear, unripe melon and green banana, sweetish but not sweet, with dim sourish undertone; medium fizz, clear wheaty slickness, soapiness and sourishness dominating under a bready pale malty side element, spiced up with obvious soapy coriander and zesty old citrus peel, remaining soft and gentle as a witbier ought to be, mildly hopped with floral and grassy notes in the end. Soapy and sourish wheat maintains the upper hand till the very end. Old-fashioned Hoegaarden epigone indeed - how many times do you still encounter that in these turbulent beer times? Faithful to the original, this almost tastes like Hoegaarden did a couple of decades ago, so obsolete as it may be, it does deliver what it promises. Witbier will never be my preferred beer style, but I have to admit that this one is relatively well-executed, even in adding absolutely nothing to the already existing (yet dwindling) pool of 'blanchekes'.
Alengrin (10989) reviewed Tough Cookie from Brussels Beer Project 1 year ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5
Pastry stout dedicated to a 'biscuiterie' in Brussels, containing lactose and Christmas pudding spicing - so a very wintery offering from BBP. At Huzaar. Medium thick, irregularly edged, pale yellowish beige, stable head, jet black robe. Aroma of chestnut liqueur, hazelnut grounds, nutmeg and indeed 'speculoos', clove, cookie dough, milk powder, Christmas pudding for sure, caramel, bitter 'fondant' chocolate, cinnamon, liquorice. Sweet onset, not sticky though and quite clean with impressions of old raisins and dried figs, medium carbonated; light sourish undertone matching with sweeter, rounded, creamy lactose, hovering over a caramelly, dark-chocolatey middle, a bit toffeeish and syrupy, in the end well-spiced with clove, cinnamon and ginger accents, but also nutmeg. Light bitter-toasty and hoppy notes in the finish as well as some warming, gin-like alcohol; the 'speculoos' and Christmas pudding effects prevail, in a bittersweet, ethereally spicy way. Draws inspiration from both actual pastry stout (lactose, roasted grains) and Belgian Christmas 'Scotch' (spices), but the emphasis even seems to lie more on the latter than on the first; not really my thing, but interesting and solid enough.