Speciaalbierbrouwerij Oijen Eikelbier

Brewed by Speciaalbierbrouwerij Oijen
Style: Fruit Beer
Oijen, Netherlands

Beer brewed with addition of gooseberries. Yellow-greenish beer, no head. Nose: fruit- YES! that are gooseberries, very fine blending of the aromas. Taste is SUPER. This is gooseberry-beer, a lot better thatn the Scottish try. Woody, fruity with a light, but refreshing body. Dutch brewers are very experimental. This one succeeded.

I was suprised and delighted by this beer. Pours a clear blond, cloudy yeast at the bottom of the bottle hard to keep out of the beer. Carbonation looked moderate, and here was lesson one: The beer had an extraordinary creamy texture I hadn’t come across before. Is it the yeast? Makes other beers feel like they have 7-Up bubbles. This was lovely, soft, and complemented the flavour. Lesson two: What a fruit beer should really be like. Checking the website, this is a beer with blackcurrants. But the beer is blond? In actuality, the flavours of beer and fruit are all there, but blend so subtly that the whole is a real symphony. Not the alcohol syrup mixes that make up most ’fruit beer’. Within the bounds of what is possible with a 6% blond beer, this modest beer rewrites the rules. *The acorn theme seems to be there to satisfy the brewers sense of humour*

Very original beer with a clear yellow color with a little green nuance in it. Almost no head but nice looking. Outspooken fruit aroma’s like unripe white grapes, green plums, ferns,accacia, lime, vegetal grass like hints and some honey. The taste is very refreshing and pure and the afthertaste is perfectly well balanced and ends with a fine vegetal bitterness.

Bottled. Hazy yellow colour, mediumsized white head. Aroma is really fruity, vanillaish and slightly nutty. A bit sweet teaish notes too. Flavour is spices, nuts, some fruits and dry like tea. Really pleasantly balanced brew.

wow loved this, blackcurrant and gooseberrie-beer. wonderfull taste and nose. good smooth silky mf. slighly bitter finish. wonderfull balanced good beer! how fruity???

Yellow coloured beer with greenish shine and a small nice white head. Aroma is very fruity with indeed the gooseberries. Most fruitbeers turn up really sweet and syrupy but these guys managed to keep this tasting as a beer. Despite the strong gooseberrynotes the taste is not overly sweet but mild, refreshing and even slightly bitter. Very original brew, still very much a beer, and certainly worth trying.

300ml bottle (Cracked Kettle)
Hazy to cloudy wit appearance (depending on how much yeast you want to pour in), and a small self-supporting head. Very interesting aroma - a little spicy, and some sweet nuttiness too, almost like a nougat. As it develops there’s even some mustard in it. Soft palate, some pleasant carbonation, and an interesting spicy zing on the tongue. Almost smoky aspect to the maltiness. Tempting fruity sweetness wafts around the mouth and up the nose, and then there’s a massive zingy crisp and bitter hoppy bite. And wow, does that finish last a long time - it’s that sweet mustard again. Really well balanced, and so complex. The glass with more yeast had a slightly more soapy aroma, and a softer taste all round. We definitely prefer the one with less yeast and more bite (probably by a difference of up to 1-0-1-0-1=0.3). While drinking this I get the feeling this is most like a blond, but way better than average. Calling it a fruit beer is rather silly, IMHO.

Bottle 33 cl. Pours a cloudy whitish yellow with a small white head and an intense smell of ripe fruits, especially grapes, blossoms, coriander, yeast and something sour. The flavor is a bit sourish too and besides that it’s mostly soft sweet like it’s stacked with ripe fruits. No acorns can be tasted in here (or maybe I just don’t recognize the taste of an acorn), but this is an enjoyable beer.