Back in 2011, Vliegende Paard Brouwers were voted the best ‘Hobby Brewers’ in Belgium, and since then they’ve been making a mark on the Belgian beer scene.
We’ve featured a few of their beers in the packs over the year, but this is one beer that kept eluding me. Originally it was made as a winter seasonal special but the popularity of this beer forced the brewery to include it in their core range.
The fact it is more readily available means I’ve finally secured a stash to include in our beer packs.
Now I’m not a coffee drinker at all, I don’t even really like the smell of the stuff. So coffee beers are hard for me to get excited about. I usually save them so I can share with a normal person who does like coffee as I’ll only have a few sips to taste and that’s it. But when you combine coffee with a Belgian Quadrupel, well…..
The aroma is of sweet malt and dried dark stone fruit, with the coffee hanging over the top. To start there is a decided sweetness to the beer. Caramel malt, brown sugar, raisins and dates are present, then the coffee astringency kicks in with some roasted malt as well as the coffee and enough hop bitterness to dry things out.
Really the coffee isn’t as strong in the flavour as it suggest in the aroma, so I enjoyed this more than I initially thought I would. Coffee lovers, go nuts!