Brunehaut Abbaye de Saint-Martin Brune

Brewed by Brunehaut
Style: Abbey Dubbel
Rongy, Belgium

Bottle. Dark brown with red tints and a small beige foam. Aromas are coffee and molasses with light smoky notes. Raisins with yeast and some pepper. Flavours are sweet cola with chocolate and toffee. Molasses with some burnt notes. Dry with spritzy yeast. Quite stout like.

Darker brown coloured beer with an average off-white head. Rather light aroma, some malty hints. Full palate. Finish is full malty with a slight alcoholic touch. Medium abbey dubbel.

Bottle from the Binny’s in Orland Park, Illinois: This pours a clear golden body with a respectable fizzy beige head... odd, because the bottle had a slow speed eruption when uncapped. The aroma is dark caramel with a rooty kind of sweetness and a suggestion of dark stone fruit. The flavor loses any fruitiness and is mainly about a maltose sweetness. Kind of lightweight for a double despite a sturdy ABV.

[This appears to be my 150th from Belgium.] Bottle, different than pictured. Sweet, indistinctly malty nose with mild yeasty nose. Body is dark ruby, so dark that it approaches black, with a dense and firm rocky tan head that sticks around. Taste is malty, a little grape in with finishing bread, light raisin, plum, and black currant, but this thing is way too fresh, needs far more time to develop. Yeast has some good potential, nicely mixes fruit with mineral water. Medium0full body, lightly dry and very smooth.

Bottle. Vibrant black beer with a ruby reddish port look. The aroma is malty and mildly port like, and the flavour is malty, roasted and slightly yeasty. Overall a nice fortified malty tasting roasted beer.

330ml Bottle: Aroma of malts, slight cocoa, slight overcooked cauliflower, and slight yeast. I do not smell the dark ripe fruits that other seem to perceive. Poured dark brown/very deep amber in color with a large, loose, tan head that diminished but lasted throughout. Cloudy. Sparkling. Flavor is neither sweet nor bitter. Tastes of malts, vegetables, yeast, and herbs. Medium body. Average to lively (tingly texture). Average to lively carbonation. Malt and yeast finish. 8%ABV is hidden throughout.

Bottle. Interesting, an Abbey beer I have never heard of before . . . and therefore not previously viewed the rating of! Well, here goes my “unbiased” take: pours murky mud brown with a smallish off white head. Aroma of prunes, hot chocolate, and raisins. Earthy, dried dark fruits, not a bad start. Flavor is just odd, though. The dark raisiny fruit and chocolate components are there, and dare I say, at times (parts of sips, that is), it is vaguely reminiscent of esteemed Belgian Browns such as Westy 8, Struise, Westmalle Dubbel -- but somehow things just don’t come together for this beer. It ends up tasting thin, fruity-but-unclean, with hints of DMS. Like I said, some sips yielded a decent beer. But others were riddled with conventional and unconventional flavor flaws that I found distracting. I can’t make up my mind on this one, but I’ll go with my gut, which is telling me that I really didn’t enjoy drinking this beer all that much.