Swaf Brune (formerly Vervifontaine)

Brewed by Brasserie de l’Abbaye du Val-Dieu
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Aubel, Belgium

Bottled. Dark amber coloured, beigeish brown head. Strong aroma and flavour of toothpaste (anise, fluor etc). Also some hints of soap and licorace. Strange sweetness present all the time (most likely from the ginseng).

Bottled
Beautiful, very dark ruby colour, big foamy and cloudy brown head, some lace. Aroma of anise, beauty soap and licorice. Strange herbal flavor with licore and spicey hoppy bitterness. Gives a bitter, spicey aftertaste, maybe it is from ginseng. Real on-off beer.

Orange brown color. Mint and orange in the aroma. Mint, yeast and orange in the flavor. Not too sweet. Just a bit alcoholic. Touch of chocolate. Spicy aftertaste. Not bad.

Murky red/brown shade lets a large and lasting off-white head atop its statement. Hugely yeasty nose comes across rather powdery, kinda dusty with pumpernickel bread hints that hinders the maltiness which is rather attenuated, faintly roasty with cocoa powder notes and frankly rather dull. No hops are noticeable at all while the yeast encloses everything. Strong, active carbonation would have fitted a richer malt bill. Not really pleasant and quite metallic.

dark red-brown colour with a fine creamy head, strong herbal and medicinal aroma, very creamy mouthfeel, very bitter, medium to full body, long bitter ginseng aftertaste - my cough is getting much better, thank you ...

Red highlights in dark amber-brown beer. Creamy yellow-brown head, leaving lace. Spicey nose, wood, green-dark leaves, undergrowth, nearly earthy, bit of ginger (or is this ginseng?). Meaty, estery taste, and a little bit of oxydized malts. Finish is again spicey, peppery. Medium bodied, quite some alcohol there, but very much hidden. Nowhere bad, just not very original. Somehow, I would think Vervifontaine might have made more out of this.

Any first impressions?
-Plump foam floats atop the cloudy reddish-brown.
-Sleepy roastiness and bready yeast can’t conjure up enough personality and substance to be enticing.
-Sweet fruitiness and chestnuts are laid on a bread crust.
-The pillowy carbonation is fitting, but I would have liked a little more malt girth at this gravity.

What if you dig deeper?
-Some roastiness and faint chocolate feign depth.
-Aftertaste is yeasty and vegetal; I guess ginseng isn’t my thing.
-The whole Swaf line feels like a second or third-tier effort.

Bottle; 07/07/2007.

How could Brasserie de Vervifontaine go out of business when they’d been producing gems like this? Why, the photo of Pierre and Rene, two of the most jovial drinkers I’ve ever seen, should be worth the price of the bottle on its own! Truth to tell, it’s a bit lopsided of a drink, although enjoyable in its own way. It pours an deep, old coffee brown body with an initially tall tan head. The aroma has candy sweet malt at its base, but then you get blasted by an intense black licorice smell. It reminded me of someone’s breath after sucking on a Smith Brothers’ cough drop because it has an additional medicinal quality. The flavor seems to be the result of the infusion of licorice as well as every spice on the rack - mint, clove, pepper, bay leaf, nutmeg... an endless list. The finish is spicy bitter, lingeringly so... almost too much so.

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