Top Tastings 2009
ABV: 8%
Origin: Esen, West Vlaanderen
Website: www.dedollebrouwers.be
This experimental brew divides opinion. I’ve spoken to several people who have hated it, and even its brewer, Kris Herteleer, seemed in two minds about it when serving it to the public at the 2009 Zythos beer festival in Sint-Niklaas, but it was voted Beer of the Festival at that event by visitors and has stirred up some interest subsequently.
De Dolle Brouwers — the “Mad Brewers” — need no introduction to world beer devotees as they’re well known for producing several remarkable beers from their base at Esen near Diksmuide in the “Westhoek”, the far west corner of Flanders. Regulars like Oerbier and Arabier are eccentric in anyone’s terms but still unmistakably Belgian, though Kris has a long held interest in British traditional styles, perhaps prompted by the fact that he began his brewing career with a Boots homebrew kit. In particular he’s interested in stout and porter, and quite how sour from mixed fermentations these styles would have been in their heyday, a question posed in liquid terms by the whiff of brettanomyces in Dolle’s own Imperial Stout.
Dolle’s beers are so contemporary it’s easy to forget the Herteleers established themselves by taking over a pre-existing, though near-defunct, brewery, previously known as Costenoble after its owning family. Under its previous ownership it brewed a dark “patersbier” — “father’s beer” or abbey beer — known as Cosmos that clearly had a relationship to British porter styles. Kris’s version is an unhopped dark beer using the sourness of lactic fermentation to offset the malt, lent body by being blended with the brewery’s wood-aged Oerbier Riserva. The widow of the brewery’s previous owner apparently thought the new version appropriately similar to its earlier namesake.
I found it a dark brown beer with a low fawn-coloured head and an intoxicating aroma with pencilly malt, minerals and chocolate over sour overripe Autumn fruit. The palate was initially very sweet and malty, rapidly souring with lambic-like notes to give a sweet and sour sauce effect with hints of cherry wood. The finish was moreish and tangy, turning nutty at the back of the throat with a brown sugar sweetness coming through. Unexpected sour flavours might be a barrier to some, but to me Cosmos was not only interesting but enjoyable in its own right.
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