Mikkeller Monks Elixir

25.4 oz bottle. Dense brown with some beige haze and wet lace. Nose is grapes, raisin, acetone and toffee. Body a bit thin and bubbly but it still works. Taste is apple, plum and woody yeast. Dry finish with hints of dark fruits. A different kind of Quad from Mikkeller.

Great stuff. Deep brown with chestnut overtones, dark enough to seem almost opaque at first, with a large light brown head that faded quickly. Nose of malts, sweet fruits, dried fruits, and spices, like a Belgian quad. Great complexity of flavor like a quad, less chocolate, perhaps, and almost no coffee, but malts and candi sugar and toffee, a hint of chocolate for sure, dried fruits, caramel, some sweet spices like clove or cinnamon, and something that I could not place with certainty — over-ripe plums? prunes? licorice? Some much going on. Alcohol well hidden ... too well, actually. This is not a bottle you want to drink by yourself!

My Bottom Line:
Dried fruit of all kinds thrive within the molasses-laced chocolate as warming alcohol and bready yeast sweep into a finishing wooden hop bitterness for a healthy and most generous Quadrupel.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A generous layer of foam stays atop the heavily-sedimented dark brown.
-The dried fruitiness is redolent of black cherries and dates.
-Dextrins are levelled throughout, helped towards a valiant big-beer mouthfeel.
-I wish I had another bottle to age longer. A little maderization will surely be gorgeous for the aroma and the flavor profile could gain from being more cohesive. But this beer’s already very satisfying for the style as is.

Bottle; 19/03/11 was written on the plastic cork.

750ml Bottle: Sweet aroma. Smells of raisins, dark ripe fruits, brown sugar, malts, toffee, caramel, and hops. Poured deep copper/brown in color with a large, foamy, khaki head that lasted throughout. Cloudy. Full of small, medium, and large particles. Flavor is lightly sweet. Tastes of nuts, wood, chocolate, dried fruits, alcohol, yeast, and toffee. Medium to full body. Dry, chalky texture. Soft to average carbonation. Nutty, slightly alcoholic, dry finish.

Deep reddish brown pour with so-so head. The aroma is very malty, which right away had me thinking this wasn’t a typical quad. As it turned out, that was more in a bad way than a good way. Lots of malty flavor up front, with some cereal-like qualities. Very little in the way of ale fruitiness. Some tart brown sugary notes come in late. Really seemed more like a barleywine. The other reviews make me think I might be missing something, which is the only reason I would try this again.

a dark murky, swampy brown under a medium sized tan head. dark aroma of chocolate, alcohol, cocoa, sweet dark fruits(plum, etc), caramel. flavor of tootsie rolls and sour dark fruits (plum, apple). lots of chocolate and caramel. a little over carbonated palate but still very nice.

Bottle from SL, courtesy bfeld. The pour was deep caramel-orange-brownish, nice off-white colored head, dense spotty lacing all the way down. The aroma was beery, rather than Belgian Strong Ale-like, reminded me of the barley type smell I picked up in Westvleteren 12 the first time, yet I didn’t even know this was a Quad when drinking. Also in the aroma was chocolate, caramel, fruits. The flavor was caramel, chocolate, brown sugar, some dark fruits (grapes discernable), honey, and some spice, perhaps coriander. Mouthfeel started slightly acidic at low temps, but turn to more of the usual, malty sticky standard with warmer temperatures. Good stuff, not a standout within style, especially at these prices.

750ml caged and corked bottle. Pours a dark, murky mahogany with a two-finger cream-colored head that lingers throughout the session leaving lots of lacing. The smell was very sweet with caramelized sugar and dark fruits dominating. The taste has a big sweetness of caramel malts and Belgian yeast forming a backbone on which dark fruits and chocolate. The alcohol makes itself known in the taste as well. The mouthfeel is medium bodied but a little lighter than most quads I’ve had with tons of carbonation. This is a very good example of a quad but probably a step down from the best. Still, very, very good.