Beer Tasting - report from European Beer Bloggers and Writers Conference #2

Tasting beer during the EBBC2016 was a kind of speedy dating. Not much time and a lot of effort to keep up with your colleagues (and still remember whether the beer was good and how does it smell/taste. Some beers here were tasted in the main session and some during “share a beer” event.

Therefore, for a speed tasting I have decided to write about it in a form of speed reviewing. Probably closer to form normally used by “ratebeer” than by the blog.

1, 2, 3… START

Stout 8

Brewed: Brouverij Maximus, Netherlands

Black beer with creamy chocolate-colored head. Clear chocolate and some herbal notes in the nose. Taste of roasted chocolate, toffee and some fruits. Great bitter finish. Medium body, low to average carbonation. Very elegant and very tasty. If you like stouts go for it!

Us Heit Isala Barleywine Barrel Aged

Brewed: Friese Bierbrouverij, Netherlands

Very complex beer, very true to its style. Pours dark brown. Heavy scent of candy sweet, vanilla and oak. Tastes even more like a combination of heavy candy, vanilla and lots of woody barrel notes. Thankfully, body is not to heavy, otherwise would be not drinkable. That way it’s a great desert beer, maybe a step or two from greatness.

Weird Beard Saison 28

Brewed: Weird Beard, UK

Golden dark beer, decent white head. Great aroma of hops, dill, citrus and some caramel. Smells more like papaya, pepper and clear herbal bitterness. Amazing. In fact, the best beer I have tested here. I was ready to steal the rests in the bottle from the table and disappear.

Harvey’s Elizabethan Ale 

Brewed: Harveys, UK

When tasting your bottle of the Elizabethan Ale, please consider that the one we had was 12 years old. That was the first time, I have considered that this is not drinking but eating a beer. Very thick, dark orange, totally still beer. Very spicy in aroma and taste. Resembles more a high class sherry than ale. Certainly an exceptional experience, but nit everyday thing.

Weird Beard Sadako

Brewed: Weird Beard, UK

Second Weird Beard brew in the line. Pitch black Imperial Stout that smells of roasted malts coffee, maybe tobacco. Taste of licorice, roasted coffee. Medium carbonation, bitter finish. Great!

Plan 9 from outer space
Brewed: Oersoep, Netherlands


So its pilsner. Or maybe rather Zwickl/Kellerbier, since its unfiltered? This or that way: very pleasant surprise. Easy tasting, no bad surprise pils style beer. May not take the world by storm but it is still better than the majority of concern-made pils.