De Dolle Speciaal Brouwsel 20

Bottle from 1980 @ Kulminator. Read brown with huge beige creamy head. Sour aroma with notes of wood, sour berries, roasted malt and vinegar. Sour flavor with berries, wood, barnyard and malt. Ends sour. Fantastic carbonated for such an old beer. Lovely!

The most unique and complex sour yet. Champagne like appearance on this dark yellowish gold de dolle. Very mild biting sour punch with a hay, mold and oak backbone. See this one as one will that will bring a group to diverge to where they’ll either love or question the 20th.

Tasted at Cleveland tasting on 8-23-08. Thanks!! Bottle pours a dark amber color with a white head. There are a lot of tiny floaters in this one. Aroma is very earthy, and woody with some musty smells, and some slight citrus. Has a very big body and was very well carbonated. Taste was very surprising. I didn’t think I would taste something that pushed the envelope on this style. It was hard to describe. It was sweet like caramel, but had a musty flavor in there. It was woody, but also had a nice tart finish. Overall this was a surprising beer that I really enjoyed tasting.

Big thanks to Pantanap for popping this bottle for us. Real dirty orange, lots of floaters with creamy white head. Stinky, earthy sour aroma with lots of red fruit. Dirty, a little alc, only a little sour, cherry, grapefruit, resiny, very yeasty, a little old and sweet. Medium body with small carb. Overall a great aroma but flavor did not follow through. Kind of wierd looking as well.

750ml bottle. Still lively. Gentle opening proudced a loud pop and a bit of gushing as well. Luckily we only lost less than an ounce. Very musty and woody on the nose. Plenty of cork as well. A hint of metallic oxidization. Musty basement. Wet wood. Slightly outdoorsy. Sweeter candy confectionaries: toasted caramel and butterscotch? Definitley showing it’s age, though. Pours a muddy dark butterscotch with a decent, lasting off white head. Flavor is very musty. Cobwebby. Quite dry. A decent dose of structured wood tannin. Some mild rubbery and band aidy phenols. A pretty big copper metalicness starts to develop as the beer opens. Tangy acidity but far from overbearing. Apple skin. Yeast pour tones down the metallic acidity and amps up the chewy and slightly doughy malt aspect. Tempered acid. Brown sugar laced orange peel. Floral aspects begin to emerge as well: lavender and chamomile? Odd for sure. Lively carbonation and fairly thick mouth feel for this style of beer, especially towards the bottom of the bottle. Finishes fairly acidic with a touch of oxidization. Nice... showing it’s age but still quite pleasant. Thanks a TON for this one Zac!