Dolle Brouwers Special Extra Export Stout

First published in BEER January 2008 as part of a piece about imperial stouts.

ABV: 9%
Origin: Esen, West-Vlaanderen
Website: www.dedollebrouwers.be

De Dolle Brouwers Special Extra Export Stout

Imperial Stout was a souped-up 19^th century development of London porter that found favour in Tsarist. A century later the sole surviving original brand from Barclay Perkins ended up in the dubious custodianship of Courage as one of the famous five bottle conditioned beers still in production at the inception of CAMRA. The giant brewer finally got round to clearing out its attic in 1993 when the last brew emerged from John Smith’s at Tadcaster.

The loss of Courage Russian Stout sparked renewed interest in the style, particularly across the Atlantic – it was for the US market that Harvey’s recreated the recipe originally brewed for 19^th century exporter A Le Coq, who pioneered sales of English stout to Russia. Brewers in the Low Countries and Scandinavia have since entered the fray and in the US itself the style’s high gravity, generous hopping, strong flavours and historic pedigree have endeared it to a generation of “Extreme Beer” brewers.

Imperial Stout isn’t the sort of thing you’ll find on every supermarket shelf and the more flamboyant US versions remain unseen in Britain, but you should be able to source the four beers featured here from UK specialists. Other good examples you might encounter are from Alvinne (Podge), Bartrams, Brooklyn (Black Chocolate), Pitfield, Proef (SNAB Czaar Peter) and Thornbridge, plus of course Harvey’s excellent and very traditional version – all of them fit for a Tsar.

De Dolle Brouwers, the “mad brewers”, first fired their mash tuns in 1980 when cycling and home brewing enthusiasts the Herteleer brothers took over an ailing 1835 rural brewery. They’re now among the best-known and best-loved of new generation Belgian brewers for their distinctive and eccentrically marketed bottle conditioned beers.

The brothers are long-term admirers of British stouts and their own is partly inspired by a Whitbread recipe but uses their house yeast which includes a lactic culture – as Kris Herteleer says, two centuries ago British stouts would also have been sour. It’s brewed from pale, roasted and caramalts – interestingly there’s no roasted barley – and hopped with whole Nugget flowers from Poperinge.

This lively dark ruby beer has an incense-laden aroma with notes of cardamom and smelling salts. The blackcurrant and chocolate palate has something of the thick gravy-like quality of the old Courage version and a notable sourness from the lactic yeast. Brown sugar notes emerge before a mouth-numbing finish with ashy chocolate roast well-blended with burry hops, dark marmalade and sultana fruit. A little wild when young, perhaps, but it will mellow slowly for years.

For more imperial stouts, see next post.
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/de-dolle-extra-export-stout/31936/