Unibroue 16

Formerly brewed at Unibroue (Sapporo)
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Chambly, Canada

Thanks to kiefdog for the share. Pours caramel color with a strong sugary candy apple caramel aroma. Great sugary sweetness with a granny smith bite. Finishes sweet and sticks around. Incredibly smooth beer for not even 2 years old.

This is listed as retired but I was lucky enough to find it at the local beer store. There was a stamp on the bottle that said B2007 so I guess it was from 2007. Wonderful aroma and a beautiful pour. Nice foamy head. Great sweet flavor never reveals the alcohol hidden inside. Vanilla, sweet fruit, lots of stuff going on in there. Another fantastic beer from Unibroue.

750 bottle into Unibroue goblet. A hazy brownish orange pour. Muted sweetness in the aroma. Candi sugar and lots of spice initially in the flavor. Orange rind and lemon with with some bitterness at the end. Reminiscent of a tripel. Creamy and medium full mouthfeel. The Unibroue house flavor is definitely there but with enough variation to be pretty interesting. Probably would have been good for a few more years in the cellar.

Bouteille de 750 ml vieillie. Nos yeux observent une bière de couleur orangée-rougeâtre légèrement voilée, coiffée d’une mousse fauve imposante au départ mais qui diminue rapidement par la suite. Notre nez respire des arômes de pain, de levure, de bonbons, de caramel, de sucre d’orge, de pommes rouges, de bananes, de mélasse avec des effluves d’alcool. Notre langue fait face à un corps rond et une effervescence moyenne. Nos papilles gustatives quand à elles goûtent des saveurs de sucre brun, de levure, d’alcool ainsi que de gâteau aux fruits. Des notes de madérisation sont aussi perceptible.

Bottle. Pours orange with an off white head. Fruity and yeasty aroma, with apple, banana, and spice. Full, smooth body. The flavor is not too sweet and fruity, with spice, Unibroue yeast, peach and some citrus. VEry nice.

Minus the fact I’m enjoying this brew after multiple home brew offerings, 16 brings a full body and rich palate. I really can’t describe this one at my present state except for it’s malty base and fig notes, but it is rich and enjoyable. Keep Pouring IT!!! But, wait, it is discontinued and not available anymore... should I have brought this out of my cellar now???? Damn, maybe I should have waited longer...

How many years has it been since I have enjoyed a Unibroue? 2? 3? Far too long if you ask me. The appearance of a great beer is still there; Hazy orange with a thick cream head resting aloft. Orange, coriander, spice, yeast and sugar show up in the aroma. The flavor is classic Unibroue: extremely drinkable, and subtle in its complexities. This one had less of the yeast flavor I expected, and more of a earthy, leafy (and almost metallic, sadly) flavor. The year and 10 months of age may have mellowed this to its saison-like brew, but with a higher alcohol bite.

A tepid amber pour; transparent with yeast left sitting. Burly booze and spiced-up malt aroma. Deeply toasted cookie dough, dried apricots with a cinnamon coating, and some gorgeously autumnal nutmeg and roasted chestnut-like spicing; it’s an aroma melded in earth and old sweetness, and it’s settled together in toasty fireside warmth. I should have made a campfire tonight. It might be slightly too sweet at times, but the layers it reveals are endearingly comfortable and blanketing, enough so that minor distractions such as that struggle to roughen it in even a small way.

Flavor is copper-toned in metallic earth and warmly spiced, while showing less of the toasty, bready sweetness of the aroma than would be ideal. More often, the sweetness here is in the form of brown pears, pistachios, and cinnamon-sugar, while the body is left somewhat languishing in alcohol, and longing to be rescued by some gallant, muscular malt profile that never quite arrives. The lighter-hearted nuances are all there, and the tangy-cloying maple and honey serum flavors are there too, but the body of bread and dark doughy warmth is just quite thin, especially as that ten percent strength bears down on it. Still, though, the flavors are quite good; expressive, diverse, and complementary. Near the end, a welcome earthy bitterness of anise and a smoky juniper-branch greenness cleans up the residual qualities of the beer’s persistently sticky sweetness, if only for a brief moment.

Yeast poured into the last full serving really opens up the flavors of the beer and wraps them all together, in a clean bouquet that throws aside the leaning toward astringency and the somewhat aggressive mineral earth character it had previously; furthermore, the body is thickened and enlivened, and the flavors already present in the beer but weak to shine under the weight of alcohol are now more discernable. Most notably, the hazelnut, and banana-chocolate characters that lingered underneath throughout are drifting happily at the surface. But there remains a formidable cloud of fusel alcohol muddying the waters even as it reaches its revelation.

Palate is quite full now, where in the initial pour it was somewhat skeletal, again given the weakness of the malts in tandem with high alcohol; currently, it’s sprightly while thick, and lightly chalky. The density of fulsome yeasts simply works wonders in this example, and it really concludes the experience with a sophisticated, carefully-wrought impression; flavors at the finish of alcohol, green bitterness of cloves and pine, and vanilla. Sticky in the final smack, with a long grasp. Applaudable for its range of character, even if it isn’t wholly impressive.