Deca / Struise Aardmonnik

Pré-ZBF Festival 2010

ABV: 8%
Origin: Woesten-Vleteren, West-Vlaanderen
Website: http://struise.noordhoek.com

De Struise Aardmonnik

De Struise Brouwers, a beer firm that work mainly on the plant of the Deca brewery, are the enfants terribles of Belgian brewing, more appreciated by the international “extreme beer” crowd than within Belgium itself for their eccentric, often strong and sometimes barrel-aged ales. The name means “ostrich”, recalling the fact that the owners’ other enterprise is an ostrich farm, but the word is also slang for “tough”, explaining their self-translated English strapline “the sturdy brewers”.

Aardmonnik, or Earthmonk, is a rare occasional strong brown ale aged in oak for 18 months — it’s not been around for a while but it appeared on draught at the Pré-ZBF event this year. It’s a very dark brown beer with a generous foamy beige head and a sourish bretannomyces-laced brown malt aroma, evidence of its long ageing. A lightly balsamic palate has chewy cherry and vine fruits, wood tones, toffee and a slight nuttiness, with just a hint of smoky bacon. A lovely sappy moreish finish has a smack of burnt plastic and some subtle smokiness, staying nice and tart around the mouth. Despite its wacky reputation this is actually ends up quite a traditional Flemish brown ale, albeit on the very strong and vivid side, and given the shrinking ranks of that particular style, is most welcome. A shame it’s limited to 5,000 bottles every two years.