t Smisje Calva Reserva

Brewed by Brouwerij De Regenboog
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Assebroek-Brugge, Belgium

Pours a hazy orange brown hue with a slight off-white head. Aromas of caramel, apples, smoke, oak, rum and toffee. medium bodied with roasted oats, nuts, and a little fig.

Bottle. Mahogony beer with a thin light beige head. Big apple, malty aroma with some oak, spice, and alcohol. Malty, toffee flavor with lots of apple and some oak backing. Lingering malty, apple flavor with a bit of brown sugar. Medium body. Alcohol doesn’t seem to be 12%. Nice complexity and apple fruitiness. Doesn’t have the richness and depth of a JW Lees harvest in Calvados, but very tasty.

After a gentle pour, there formed a slight wisp & halo above a murky, ruby-tinted amber body... rather brandy-like but for its opacity. Sweet, fruity esters in a nose that finds a wealth of cherry, plum and peach underscored by caramely malts and an odd nippletwist of beef broth. Mouthfeel has a potency and soft warmth that wraps the tongue lovingly like a tiny, polar fleece sweater. A cornucopia of thick, fruit flavors lingers for a short while before a shrapnel grenade of alcohol is dispersed in all directions... leading to a dry finish in which the flavors readily fade. Most excellent.

<font size=-4>I can’t remember where we picked this up, but it was probably Sam’s.</font>

The aroma is vinous and boozy smelling with strong notes of dark malt and dark sweet fruits along with some rum raisin notes. The body is a murky, ruddy brown and holds a lazy and bubbly tan head. Smooth rum-raisin bread and fruitcake like fore. Very heary and rich, but with smooth sweet overtones. mildly spicy with a bracing hotness fromt he alcohol. The finish is pretty stale and still though and ruins what is otherwise a damn interesting beer.

Hazy red pour with little head. Strong, sweet, alcoholic aroma with notes of oak and whiskey. Sweet multi vitamin flavor with oak and tart apple, caramel and rum. Although the alcohol makes itself known, it’s presence is balanced and warming. Strangely thin in body. Smooth finish with just a bit of astringency. Excellent nightcap beer.

Pours a medium red/brown with small frothy head. Nice lacing. Aroma is out of this world. Plum apple and malt aroma. Flavor is of spicy malt and ripened fruits. Warming to the belly. A great sipping beer.

11.2 oz bottle. Pours a slightly cloudy brown colored body with absolutely no head at all, save for a few large thin bubbles. Aroma is full of heavy malt with a good dose of alcohol. Green apples, oak, yeast, and port as well. Flavor is heavy malt, with some madiera and port like oxidation notes. Sweet apple, spices, alcohol, toffee, and oak tannins show up in the finish. Alcohol is pretty well hidden in the flavor for being 12%ABV. Mouthfeel is thick and full-bodied with zero carbonation. Not cloying in the slightest, surprising with all that malt. Overall, an interesting beer. I liked the calvados barrel influence that was there. It was a nice change of pace from all the bourbon barrel beers. I could have used a more lively mouthfeel though.

Bottle from Super Saver. Pours thickish diarrhea brown, with almost no head. This one is less pleasing to the eye than Oprah on all fours. The aroma is barleywiney, with a huge figgy fruit, funky caramel malt, cheddar cheesy, oaky port winey aroma. Nice. The taste is caramel malty, candi sugary, fruity, with notes of cherry, berry, pear, and apple. Also, flavors of paky bourbon and smoky cognac come through as it warms. Medium on the palate, with a ack of heft that reduces the palate score to 3 for me, but with a notable complexity. This may be the most wide rangind score profile I’ve ever given. At any rate, this one is worth picking up.