De Dolle Stille Nacht Reserva 2000

Formerly brewed at De Dolle Brouwers
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Diksmuide, Belgium

750-milliliter bottle into wine balloon. Pours a burnt orange, a lot clearer than expected, with just a small film on top. It still is a lot more alive than I expected; very bubbly for a 9-year-old ale. Maybe the supplementary cork helped ensure this. A lot of honey, molasses, brown sugar donut-glaze in the aroma. Maple frosting. Flavor is a nice, fully synergized fusion of caramel, purple grape juice, overripe apricot, sweet red Napa zinfandel. Nice gooey viscosity. Again, unprocessed fresh-from-the-comb honey in the flavor. Yup, this one’s just about ready to drink. Slightly alcoholic flavor/finish/esophageal warmth, but in a most welcome way. Overall, world class minus.

busy and syrupy it is full with raisin, plum and flowery sugar. perhaps a bit too cold it was infused with a wet dank wood flavor... soy like and slow foamy. as one would expect it is like sherry in taste and alcohol aged and mellow.

Huge thanks to pepsican, badbeer, and iowaherkeye. Alcoholic, caramelly nose, raisin. Slightly metallic. finishes nicely-tons of honey-tastes like raw unrefined honey-cigary. Very nice dry character. Probably a little past its prime, but nevertheless very nice.

Murky amber pour with a nice sized white head. Aroma is very boozy with some plums, caramel, and chocolate. I’ve written raisins a bunch for flavor in my reviews, but my god! This is a raisin bomb. It has a nice sherry style flavor as well. Finish was boozy. Not really my thing but fun to try.

Huge thanks to Bkelley68 for sharing this. Pours a nice orange or copper with a decent white head. I was a bit worried with the aroma while the beer was warming. It had some nail polish and paint thinner going on but as it got warmer it became more wood, yeast and wine. Fruit and yeast as well in there. Flavor was maybe as good as it gets...wood, tart yeast, spicy, caramel, fruit, and many other things. Very little sign of oxidation. Just a great beer and good to try.

Light funk, chocolate, caramel, butter aroma. Yeasty sample - did not look too great. Chocolate, dust, caramel, fruit, a bit cheese. Very complex. Medium body, smooth mouthfeel.

I normally don’t post, but this is to brag. Had this tonight, and it was amazing. Has a great, Chardonnay like aroma and flavor, which is probably due to the oak aging, and 8 years. Very different from the 05 reserva, but in my opinion better. It doesn’t have the hotness that I remember from the 05 and is very smooth. It also had a very slight tartness to it that was very refreshing. The bottle I drank this from is now a very nice trophy for me! If you can try this, I would highly recommend it.

a great opportunity to try this beer thanks to the rb comunity. this beer was a bit like watching and old athlete in a come back fight. still good but past its prime. great balance and strong fruit presence, a little to mellow in body vs. a newer non reserva. surprisingly there was some alcohol in the nose along with yeast and light spice. i did learn something, don’t hold on to long to the jewels in your collection.