Bush Prestige (Scaldis Prestige)

Brewed by Dubuisson
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Pipaix, Belgium

Red, hazy glow with a nice off white head. Sourish aroma with alcohol, a lot of raisins, fruit and nuts. Taste is alcohol, sweetness, ripe dark fruits, caramel, berries, a slight acidic touch and whisky (?).

Hazed and caramel-brown in color with little but grain dust on the top for the head. Melting caramel, lime touches and orange toffee impact the nose, along with freesia berries, lavender sheets and lemon suds diffusing over crème brulee. Brown sugar bake flavor is hidden with lemony raisins. Crème caramels, buttery rum toffee and nutmeg get thrown over golden raisins that have been basted with brown sugar for hours. Slight, dirty chestnut taste with a touch of gritty, chalky lining. Ginger chews and nutmeg meet some caramel pralines and buttery toffee, but the nutty, dampened cardboard intermission is a bit disgruntling. Earthy/sweet Styrian bitterness fades into the wholesome brown bread flavor, with a mild bread loaf bite in its afterlife. Thanks for sharing, Matt!

Bottle. Rich slightly hazy amber beer with a huge off-white head. Oaky, caramel, slightly yeasty aroma. Caramel, yeasty, oak, dried fruit flavor with some bourbon/whiskey tones. Alcohol stays hidden but starts to creep up as you drink more and it warms. Great balance. Very drinkable with good complexity.

Bottle sample at Union Beer Trade Tasting, NYC. Still golden amber colour with a faint white head. Aroma of caramel, oak, dried fruit and whiskey. Flavour - wow! Soft fruit notes, malt, spice, wood - so well integrated. Unlike many barrel-aged beers, there is a lot of subtlety and complexity going on here. And it hides that 13% frighteningly well. One day, I’m going to have to get a bottle of this for myself and spend an evening enjoying it...

Aside from the presentation, the predominant theme here is oak. I’ve had a few darker beer styles aged in oak, and the flavors have ranged from nicely married to confused and muddy, but none have come as close as this one to capturing that thing in Chardonnay that I usually hate. In Bush Prestige though, the slight bile, mild vanilla, and distinct woodshop notes work perfectly with the earthy Belgian yeast and mildly tropical flavors. It really is a Wow! beer that I would love to pair with food.

BUSH Prestige. For my birthday. Hazy amber orange with a huge head, some gushing here. It made it all the more interesting though. Aroma is oak with lesser Belgian and beer notes... caramel, spices, various fruits. Flavor has some alcohol warming... you can tell this isn’t 5%, but it’s hard to imagine it’s 13. Very flavorful and enjoyable, but even more overpriced. The oak definitely added a delicate touch, but I don’t think this comes close to justifying the price tag. If you’re looking for something retardedly expensive from Belgium, get Deus.

Bottle: Cloudy/murky orange with a thin white head and lots of particles, funky aroma with earth and barnyard, light-to-medium bodied with good carbonation, starts and ends lightly bitter. A decent beer but certainly not worth the price.

2004 Vintage in the bottle: Much improved, the alcohol was much more subtle. Although i’m still not blow away by this beer. Fruity dry caramel up front with a spicy, peppery finish. The woodiness gives a good character but the complexity wasn’t there. I was really not impressed with this beer, served from the brewers they really need to age this stuff before they poor it, tasted way to hot with alcohol. Too sweet with some caramel and oak showing in the finish, but not much could be made out through all the alcohol. Also, this poured a nasty cloudy orange with a fast falling head.