Mikkeller It’s Alive!

Mikkeller
Brewed at De Proefbrouwerij
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Copenhagen V, Denmark

OK ... it’s not really a WILD Belgian, although it clearly has a touch of Brett. Anything with Brett is lucky to escape with a 7 on aroma! Some funk, but not overwhelming. Crystal clear copper, big head, only slight lacing, but lovely. Taste of caramel malts, citrus hops, tripel yeast, with a funky citrus finish. Reminds me of an Allagash Interlude after a year, not of a Belgian. Not a bad thing. This is a wonderful beer.

Courtesy Beerlando. Cloudy dark amber color with a light tan head. Real strange aroma - perfume, lavender, musk, grass, I wasn’t entirely won over by the aroma, but it’s wasn’t unpleasant either. Very nice taste - grainy lactic sourness, wet grain, crushed flowers, herbal middle, dry finish. An interesting brew.

Bottle. Light hazy orange colour with a medium frothy head and some lacing. Moderate malty aroma and taste with notes of fruits and spice with a light alcoholic finish.

Bottle from SL, courtesy bfeld. The pour was golden orangey in color, lots of sedimentation throughout, good initial large-bubbly head. The aroma was a lot like the DeProef Flemish Primitive, some funk, yeast, saison-like spicing (pepper), slight tart apples. The flavor followed the aroma, dry, slightly hopped finish. The mouthfeel was on the light side for the amount of sedimentation and for what I was expecting, but finishes clean.

A rich lightly cloudy shade of burnt orange, and an actively buzzing head of cream bubbles. Alive, it is. An ebullient pear flesh and white pepper aroma; clean and sweet, soft in pale malts, and dry in yeasts. Not especially vibrant or arresting in strange complexities currently; somewhat pale, and plain, though the dustiness of the yeasts and the fresh fruit esters, and the detailed density of the malts are all immediately evocative and in totality, invigorating. There’s a touch of seaside character in there that’s exhilarating in a different, funkier way.

Dry grass, wildflower sweetness, straw and melon rinds are the pastel colors of the flavor; it’s cottony, and soft, and although it isn’t flimsy, it certainly betrays that the yeasts really haven’t finished their work yet. Perfumes, white pepper, pineapple rinds. Despite its quietness, it’s really lovable how distinct and composed the flavors are, while the alcohol strength seems perfectly aligned to really wrap them all together as it does in the best strong blondes like Moinette or Dulle Teve. Consistently, though, it tends to sit contently in this herbal, semi-bitter and semi-sweet grassiness, and the yeast interplay with the malts is just too pensive at this stage of youth for it to really be comparable to those great examples. Rather, it’s refreshing and distant, which is an acceptable trade-off; pleasant in clean sweetness and meadow-like fragrances. A distinct bay-leaf note mid palate.

Yeast pour tends to brighten it up. Aroma is splashed with melon-flesh, apple, and orange blossom colors, still quite peppery, and punchy; flavor is sparklier, and somewhat drier with more pronounced bitter herbs and a coating of dandelion stem glue; withstanding the alcohol comparatively a bit better; the dry saison or Orval-like mustiness certainly being enhanced.

So, at times, the body being so fulsome and alcohol-heavy seems salient, while at others, it isn’t really conducive to the softness of the flavors and overwhelms them simply by weight. Finishing flavors are white pepper, dry wood, and a hard to pin down powdery brown spice of some kind; might be cardamom, alongside soft chardonnay tannin. While this will almost definitely be a more interesting animal further along in its life, it currently might serve as a fitting introduction into the world of ’dry’ belgian-style beers given its general calmness and relative simplicity; still, this is certainly a world where many of the most exciting discoveries are made, and there are others that fit that description better; with less alcohol impact, and with more grace. Definitely likeable, though, of course.

Bottle at home 12-08-08 purchased from Cave Direct Beer Merchants (Mixed case of Mikkeller Beer) Orange amber pour, strange aroma that is not unlike cats piss mixed with some cheap perfume and Loz says it reminds her of a hot summers day smelling cow keck/parsley. Perfume in the mouth along with some citrus , shy spicy sweetness and alcohol that sits below waiting to entrap the glug monster, some yeast starts to show, I like this and yet reading my rating you would have never thought it, its strange difficult to categorise but very nice.

Shared by Yaniv, thanks. Warm orangy amber with haze and thin dense light tan head. Sweet lightly oaky caramel with a little vinous grapey astringency. Clean and light. Light creamy, higher carbonation. Sweet vinous grapey oaky astringenyc. Creamy light caramel. Tannic. Not a lot of sour though. some vanilla. Lingering tannic astringency.

Bottle 75cl @ the Horse school WSF-08 afterparty in Opstal.
Clear medium yellow amber orange color with a large, frothy, good lancing, mostly diminishing, off-white head. Aroma is moderate to light heavy malty, caramel, moderate to light heavy hoppy, grapefruit, orange, moderate to light heavy yeasty. Flavor is moderate to light heavy sweet and bitter with a average to long duration. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft. (240508)