t Smisje Calva Reserva

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

Bottle sampled with Beerded_one. Pours murky brwon (Barley wine-like). Aroma of caramel, sweetness, and alcohol (barley wine-like). Flavor is suprisingly smooth, caramel, alcohol, sweetness (barleywine-like). Good body damn good brew. I would have to say this is more of a Barley wine, or did i already say that too much.

small bottle. Cloudy amber w decent beige head. Aroma is very rich creamy malt/toffee/caramel candy w a touch of an old wooden building like a shed or something (earthy/woody) & some alcohol. Flavor is caramel candy & malt w mild hops but only moderately sweet, mainly in the middle with a nice dry, bitter, tartness on the finish. This beer goes through stages where it blends from a flavor burst at first to a moderate sweetness in the middle then the dry, tart, bitter finish but playing with your palate all the way through so as to deceive as to when or if that sip’s experience is done yet or not. Nice touch of spice. Into medium bodied. Somewhat viscous. The alcohol fit in well. I could probably learn to like this more but I won’t seek it out.

Bottle. Aroma is very specific, like apple cider but not as if the beer is ruined kind of way. Really, nothing like I have smelled before. Alcohol present in the aroma. Body is very light for such a strong beer, must be all the candi sugar. Goes down with no bitterness at all. An aftertaste of port-like alcohol remains. A very fine beer.

Dark burgundy color, utterly opaque....nestled ’neath a solid, if thinnish cap of tannish foam. Aroma: sweet, tart, pungent, cherryish, lemony, deep, twisted, delicious...love it. Taste it, now: huge presence in the mouth, floods every section of the senses with intense flavors, vast citric feel, sharp, spicy, somewhat sweet taste...brandy and barleywine comes to mind...big plum and grape...a little oaky, but fruit and alcohol reigns supreme. The 12 % abv becomes king in time, but the flavor there remains Lord of All. Wow. If you want a tasty ride for mind and body...grap onto a bottle of this one! ...it’s almost "too strong"..but, then, it’s not...it’s huge, but...I like that!

Rich Belgian, however did not like sediment of black dots. Aged and satisfying. Alcohol warming.

Noisy head like disant rain released an aroma of apple cider and something dark and tarry, which I pinpointed on tasting as the distinct tarriness common in Italian wines made with nebbiolo grapes. Dried apples in the flavor, but only as an accent. An amazingly compex beer that has improved vastly over the original uncarbonated bottling.

I had this as part of the beer/cheese paring at the Brick Store Pub on 04/03/06. It was paired with Mahon Reserva. This was the final pairing of 5. The beer was poured from a 11.2 ounce bottle into a snifter glass. The beer was a cloudy light reddish brown and it had a decent head on it. The aroma was of brown sugar and rum. The flavor was malty and tasted of good rum aged in oak with notes of fig. This is a very complex beer.

This beer says hello with an aroma that consists of the fragrances of malt, yeast, caramel, and clove. It is a cloudy mahogany colored solution with a thin off-white colored head. This rich beer flows through the mouth with a smooth texture. The taste is a sweet concoction of biscuits and caramel with hints of orange in the background.