Gulden Draak

Brewed by Brouwerij Van Steenberge
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Ertvelde, Belgium

Serve in Trappist glass, Tulip, Tumbler

UPDATED: AUG 10, 2010 Aroma is a wonderful bouquet of sweet, fruity notes. There’s almost a hint of candy, but it’s not overpowering. Appearance is a dark brownish hue. A medium spectrum of sweet notes. Rolling the beer around the tongue, it develops an amazing aftertaste as it wafts into the nasal cavity. Strong, authoritative head. Very intriguing bottle design. High alcohol content is harnessed by sublime balance.

Aroma: caramel, floral, perfume, alcohol. Appearance: red, brown, black, hazy, rocky head, frothy, white-tan foam. Taste: medium sweetness, lightly bitter. Palate: full body, creamy, lively, long finish. Overall: This is one of the greatest beers of all time, outstanding in every way. It is full-bodied, rich-flavored, significantly sweet, and hardly bitter. The 10.5% alcohol starts working on you from the very first sip!

Pours dark ruby red, nice bubbly head, with a dread; sorry couldn’t help myself. High carbonation actually overpowers some of the finer points in this beer. Creamy texture on a med-full body. Finish is a bit bitter with a yeasty feel. Peppery aroma balanced with a dark fruit undertone and sweet malt. Very good beer.

UPDATED: OCT 27, 2010 Mahogany with a beige head that falls short of a coat (hmm). Nutty caramel aroma with dark fruits and berries. Lots of stewed fruit and berry sweetness with balancing sour funk and a slight hop note. Quite fortified-winelike and awfully boozy. I suspect this is a poor bottle given some other ratings’ description of a nice head. There are complex fruit and malt flavours but it’s cloyingly heavy and pedestrian overall. [2.8]

Mahogany with a decent light beige head. Aroma is quite cheesy, with figs, dates and toffee. Very sweet with heaps of toffee, solid dried and stewed fruits. Some vanilla and fortified wine notes. Some drying hops in the finish. Touch of metal too. Crudely boozy. A better bottle, but perhaps still not a good one (although the cheesiness of this one’s yeast is not really distracting me from anything good)? - I think I’ll chalk this down as not my thing.

From the 11.2 fl. oz. bottle no. 01LI. It pours a dark amber with a half-inch of foamy, soapy beige head that slowly diminishes. The aroma is nicely malted with smoky yeast and toffee elements. The mouthfeel is fairly heavy and chewy. The alcohol levels are dispersed amongst the flavor of malts and hoppiness. But there is also an amiable sweetness mixed in. A decent Belgian ale.

(bottle) The last of my Van Steenberge sampler pack. Pours a dark mahogany brown with creamy tan head. The aroma was sweet and malty. Taste is slightly sour with malt and toffee. The alcohol comes through within the flavor. A sort of unique triple.

On tap at the creekhouse, brown amber clear color, with nice head and some lacing, sweet and malty with dates and grapes.

Bottle, 33cl. Pours a completely opaque, pitch black colour with a magnificent tan head. Looks amazing. Aroma is of dry fruits, pretty faint though. Taste is heavy and complex, very robust with an extra strong (mostly alcohol) finish. Superb.