Beautifully Complex Awesome Brewery!

Brewery: De Struise Brewery

Country: Belgium

Abv: 10%

Style: Belgian Strong Ale (Dark)

Review:
More and more people have been requesting beer reviews and considering that I work for Australia's leading craft beer importers and therefore have a steady supply of beers to work with, I've decided to do this!

Along with whisky reviews I'm going to try and review at least 3 or 4 beers each month and I figured I'd start off with a brilliant little breweries brilliant little beer.

De Struise's Pannepot.

Silly little name right?

At least that's what I thought when I first heard it, but I kept hearing good things about this beer.

Screw that I kept hearing AWESOME things about this beer.

Brilliant, stunning, complex, phenomenal, must try.

These are all words that I heard associated with this beer before I got to try it, but I finally managed to put my hands on a case of this for my store when we imported some for other liquor stores.

I decide to take home a couple bottles of the Pannepot to see what I personally think, over the long weekend.

This bottle is from the 2010 vintage, one of the things I love about big dark beers is that you can and honestly should age them.

I crack open the bottle and pour it's contents into my beer goblet, it pours dark, very brown, almost black at times with slightly reddish highlights and a lovely cocoa foamy head that quickly recedes

Now myself, with my dark beers I prefer to start them out cold from the fridge and let the beer warm up in the glass through contact with my hand.  This way I'm able to marvel at how the beer can evolve, especially if it's awesome enough, for it to show how complex it can be.

Initial aromas are a faint yeastieness, burnt caramel, hints of coffee, lots  of spices, faint aniseed, heaps and heaps of ripe fruits, cherries, sultanas, raisins, hints of banana.

Did I say it was complex?

Stupidly complex, however  that nose has me very eager to take a drink!

Lovely mouthfeel, thick and rich, enough to make you feel like your drinking a meal in the glass, beautifully so.

Rich malt background, those ripe fruits appear on the palate, cherries, sultanas, burnt caramel, lots of spice and as the beer warms a note of coffee appears.

Even better as most good dark beers can do, it mask's that 10% abv very nicely.  You know you're drinking a big beer, but you'd say it was a 7%, not a 10%

A long lingering finish that is a lovely balance between sweetness and a delightful slight bitterness finish off this sexy little beer.

Sadly I wound up giving the other couple bottles of this I purchased away to friends and through the grapevine I'd heard that just about every single bottleshop in Perth was sold out, actually almost all of them sold out with a couple weeks.  However I was lucky enough to find a bottleshop that managed to snag a little extra,  Cellarbrations at Carlisle.

They're selling them for $12 AUS for a 330ml bottle which is a reasonable price for for such a good beer.  However if you want to try this beer, you've got to move quick, because I'm getting ready to pick up all that he has within the next month or so, that means you need to move fast or possibly never get to try this little sexy beer.

Nose:           24/25   
Taste:          24/25
Finish:          24/25
Balance:       24/25
 
Overall:        96/100