Unibroue Quelque Chose

Brewed by Unibroue (Sapporo)
Style: Fruit Beer
Chambly, Canada

Serve in Flute, Shaker

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750 mL bottle, marked best before 31-12-2025. First served chilled. Light haze, bright red-orange brown, with no head. Extreme cherry aroma, sweet and tart, medicinal, spicy cinnamon. Cherry cinnamon flavor as well, syrupy and sweet, like cherry liquorice. Lightly medicinal.

Next up: heated. Heating creates a thin white foam. Cinnamon becomes more prominent in the aroma, and the aroma gets more boozy. Flavor is now thinner with alcohol and just notes of cherry and spice. While an interesting idea, heated Quelque Chose definitely isn’t my thing.

Finally: near room temperature, specifically I’ve allowed the rest of the bottle to keep warming while I tried the heated version. This is a more balanced version of the chilled beer, less syrupy. Pretty nice.

Summary: It’s worth trying just a little of it heated for the heck of it, but it’s much nicer at normal temperatures. A rather odd beer, but I certainly end up liking it.

Bottle from LL. Red-brown pour. Sweet sticky aroma of cloves, spices, jam, honey and apricot. Tastes are same with buttery vanilla, cherry and strawberries. Very little carbonation in a syrupy jam of a brew. Haven’t had too many fruit beers, but this seems a good example.

Bottle. Pours orange/bronze. Aroma of worcester sauce and cherries. Flavour similar but also quite syrupy. Not overly sweet, and quit smooth.

750 cork & cage from US Liquors. Reddish brown pour with little to no carbonation. Aroma is a vibrant sour-ish cherry that dominates anything else. Flavor is very much like the aroma, comes alive on your tongue more than I expected for no carbonation. Finish is a sweet and sour cherry goodness. Odd beer (especially after reading the serving suggestions) but unique and good.

750 ml corked and caged bottle purchased at Holiday Wine Cellar a year ago ($14.99). Since it is neither a hot nor cold day and since I’m drinking the whole bottle by myself, I have decided to try this all three ways: at room temperate, on the rocks, and heated. This should be fun!

ROOM TEMPERATURE. Pours a sparkling and lovely red-brown hue (more red than brown) but with only the thinnest layer of beige foam. Aroma is nice with notes of dark cherries (both sweet and tart), lots of cinnamon and some other spice (clove and nutmeg), and hints of wood. Flavor is also full of sweet/sour cherries and big cinnamon, along with hints of cough syrup (cherry flavored, of course) and dry wood. I am surprised how silky soft the mouthfeel is. Alcohol is well concealed. Very nice!

ON THE ROCKS. Aroma comes across sweeter (more like cherry hard candy) and with less spice. The flavor is muted all around with the cherries trending toward sweet and the spice less than at room temperature.

HEATED. I heated the beer in the microwave for a little more a minute. Aroma is lightly sweet stewed cherries and the cinnamon is still really big. In the flavor, the cherries are there but weaker while the cinnamon tends to dominate. Unfortunately, though, the alcohol is much more noticeable when heated.

I would definitely recommend drinking this at room temperature out of the three possibilities. I was disappointed with the heated version relative to the room temperature version. This is a very unique beer that is definitely worth trying at least once. At room temp, it certainly reminds me of a very good mild port wine. (826, 543)

Bottle I brought back from my Maine trip. Pours out mahogany/brown topped with a small head. Aroma was of cherry syrup, spice, pit fruit, dark chocolate, and rich malt. Taste is as the nose but with a lot of the cherry syrup and over sweet pit fruit.

A 2002 Bottle shared by Mike Schwartz at Belmont.
Served at room temperature. How the hell have I never tried this before. WTF is this thing? I’m actually quite blown away by this beer. The aroma can only be described as cherry pie crust and carrot cake. Seriously one of the best smelling beers I’ve ever experienced. The flavor is pretty much the same. Fresh baked cherry pie and carrot cake spices. It’s definitely a dessert beer, but the sweetness never gets out of line, perfectly balanced.

I have no idea if a fresh bottle tastes nearly as good as this one, but I’m going to find out real soon. And if it doesn’t live up to 9 year old aged bottle, then I will stock my cellar full of it and test my patience. At least it will give me something to focus on in the year 2020 besides the apocalypse..

No carbonation to speak of in this bottle. Comes across with a deep, ripe cherry flavor. Not bad but just no hints of the "dark" ale and "brown" ale that makes up the body of this brew. Again not a bad beer but this will be the only time i visit with this beer from Unibroue... an educational experience on the road of great beers but lets face it, this is a couple of ugly cousins away from being a wine cooler... you heard me.

This one is 9 years old, batch from 2002. No head at all. Unclear and amber. Aroma of cherries and cinnamon, faint old barnyard too. Portwine, ruby. Flavor is heavy sweet, faint acidic, light bitter finish, light astringent. Long duration. More cherry. Perhaps also bubblegum. oak? Astringent texture. Flat carbonation.

fruit aroma,red-orange, hazy, no head but beautiful color,medium sweetness, lightly bitter, lightly sour, medium body, creamy, soft carbonation, long finish, long finish. nice fruit beer.