La Bière du Boucanier Dark Ale

White bottle with a pirate on the label. Pours a nice little head that dissolves into almost nothing with barely any lacing whatsoever. Smell has a lot of grape flavor with some pepper and malty grain flavor hidden behind the grape. This is the first beer in a while that has left my chest burning like this. This is a great flavor, starts out sweet, then fruity, and ends malty. Has a nice hoppy aftertaste to finish it off. The mouthfeel was watery , but still very nice. I love the flavor and would adore another one of these.

That commercial description is f’d up. White painted 33cl bottle opens with a steam locomotive chuff. The beer is blood red and supports an enormous, lumpy and stable mocha froth. Fantastic brettanomyces nose- horseblanket and white pepper/galangal with cherry pie notes- plus citrus zest, maple syrup and licorice. Tastes tart and fruity, juicy, with gummi-candy flavor and sharp peppery spice. Finishes with stunning lime, tar, and almost-bourbon, followed by a quinine aftertaste and long, slow ethanol burn. Light but not watery palate, superbly dry, and practically crackling with beesting carbonation. Excellent beer… complex, balanced, and amazingly drinkable.

Very dark, murky brown with enormous frothy tan head. Aroma has malt and cookies. Taste is sweet and malty with a lot of liquorice. It’s walking that fine line between excellent and cloying, just about gets away with it. Full bodied, with noticable alcohol. Excellent.

Van steenberge seem to be able to really meld these big beers into luxurious, and approchable pieces of art, while not as crisp and mind bendinly beautiful as the blonde version, this beer is sweet yet savoury at the same time.

Dark color, huge head. Mature aroma of malt and caramel, notes of roasted barley. Sweet and well malty, with a good liquorice touch; alcohol-warming; full mouthfeeling. Maybe too sweet for the most, but a good bomb beer.