Eiken Artois

Formerly brewed at InBev Belgium
Style: Pale Lager
Leuven, Belgium

Serve in Dimpled mug, English pint, Lager glass, Shaker

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Bottle, courtesy of an InBev sales rep. Gold, thin shortlived white head and gentle condition. Brief, slightly peaty nose, quite dry and vaguely oily in the mouth with a whisper of woodiness, short vanilla note in the finish. Hardly worth the effort.

September 2008: from BA. Part of a six pack, this green 33cl bottle was given to me by my Son-in-Law to be. Poured into a Duvel glass, it was an amber colour with a good white head. Clear and bright, it looked like a Dort style lager beer. The normal nothing aroma of a lager passed me by. Oak aged my arse, this is a normal lager apart from the deeper colour. The taste you would expect from a mass produced product was evident from the first sip. Nothing bad or evil about it, just a so-so lager with labelling that doesn’t tell you a thing, but hints at something special. If I had drank this at a blind tasting I wouldn’t have detected any Oak, or ageing. I would have thought, ’this is a darker lager than normal’. Mouthfeel was watery and weak, it also began to feel metalic towards the end of the drink. Not a great drinking experience, but Artois products rarely are.

4.6% gold colour with no head, oak aroma and slight oak/caramel taste, not bad.

Draft @ De Hems, Soho W1. Pours a clear golden color with a small white head. Has a malty grainy aroma with some weak hints of oak. Fruity malty slightly oaky vanilla flavor. Has a sweetish fruity malty grainy finish with some hints of vanilla in the aftertaste.

Bottle from Tesco, less than 50p a bottle. Wasn’t a good sign. Can’t really detect much oak aging or flavour but more palatable than Stella. Faint hint of vanilla and the oak aging but like a glass of waterbeer in a glass that hadn’t been washed out. Fairly bland and not much going on but there is worse.

Bottle. Bronze beer with a semi strong head. The aroma is lightly yeasty and dry, and the flavour is plainly yeasty and dry. Overall an average lager.

Bottle. Golden brown and dull with a small heads. Aromas are grain and tea with earthy hops and hints of citrus. Not especially oaky. Flavours are thin malts with dry tea. Not a lot going on.

I hate oak-aged ales, especially the pretentiously disgusting Innis & Gunn. Fortunately, this did not really taste oak-aged at all, which is a good thing; unfortuately, it tasted pretty much exactly the same as the old wife-beater itself!

Bottle. Copper, quickly fading fine white head. Dill and the smell of of landscaping mulched with soggy wood chips. Vague sour lager malt flavor, weedy hops, a bit of plastic phenol finish. Been so long since I’ve had a standard Stella, not really remembering how this compares. To put a positive spin on this: it swallows without tripping a gag reflex. But certainly not something worth spending actual money on. Almost got through the glass. The rest, down the drain.

UPDATED: JAN 17, 2009 [330ml bottle from Asda, High Wycombe] Given that I like the oak-aged taste, I had been wondering what this was like for a while. Then I heard a rumour it could be discontinued, so nipped out and got a 4-pack in for Christmas so that I could give it to others if I hated it. Pours an odd pale peachy-amber-brown, fizzy, with no head. The unpleasant botannical sourness of Stella Artois is in there, but mellowed considerbly making this a nicer drink. There is a little vanilla and wood hovering in the background, but mainly felt rather bland.

33cl bottle. Amber with a thin white head, rapidly disappearing to leave a flat liveless beer; some vanilla and oak on the aroma, but also sweet cereal; slightly malty flavour with a damp cardboard finish; drinkable, but nothing more.