First off thanks for sending me the beer - it is the first Belgian beer I have been sent so I have been looking forward to giving it a go. This fallen angel has just finished making a batch of my house bitter so I have a mighty drooth on me (thirst being the work of evil). So, like Adam succumbed to an apple in the Garden of Eden I succumbed to J_P's Satan's Winter Warmer in the kitchen.
I served it straight from the cupboard so I'm not sure if I was supposed to chill it down a bit. However I don't think the beer suffered any. There was the teasing "hiss" of sin on opening and it poured with a fairly tight head resembling the colour of Lucifers gnarled ancient horns (okay I'll stop now). The head didn't hang around too long but the beer still retained its condition right to the end. It was off pale like an IPA and was crystal clear, the picture doesn't do it any justice (I grabbed the glass straight from the drip tray so is my fault).
The nose was an unmistakable sweet Belgian candy and banana with not too much hop aroma getting through. As it warmed up the banana became more prominent. The fruity aroma came through in the taste which was balanced against the saaz hops delivering a nice bitter cleansing taste after the sweetness of the malt faded. As a side note, I am not a big fan of young saaz, this beer was bottled on the 21st of October so hops have had time to mellow and develop.
This was certainly not a session beer at 6.7% but it was deceptively refreshing for a beer that carrys so much weight. I could see me knocking three of four of these in quick succession and wondering why my legs stopped working.
This tasting other people's beer really is the Devil's Work
I found that it had a good but not overpowering malt charachter, a very clean taste and a good long bitter finish. I've not tried a brew (to my knowledge) with brown malt, I found that there was a good sweet taste to balance the bitterness, maybe it's the brown malt?
