Beer 329/365 – De Struise Black Albert

Style: Russian Imperial Stout

ABV: 13.0%

Purchased at: Official Struise Yeast Shop

What makes this beer different: Very disappointed as I think it was infected.

Will I be drinking this again: Yes I have two more in the cellar, hoping they are not infected.

Grade: B-(Keep in mind this is based on the infection)

10/3/2010: A few months back I stumbled upon a thread on BA that mentioned buying beer straight from De Struise in Belgium. At first I just ignored it figuring the shipping would be unreal, but it wasn’t. The beer’s themselves are cheap enough that by the time you roll in the shipping, it costs about $5-$6 a bottle. Thats about the price I would pay here for a really good Belgian beer so why not. I also picked up a couple of their Black Damnation Mocha Bomb, and Black Mes.

From what I have read Black Albert is supposed to taste like a cross between a Quad, and RIS. The smell has a lot of cherry, and chocolate… So far so good! The flavor though, instantly I can tell its infected. Its not a terrible infection, but enough to really distort the flavor of the beer. The sour/cherry/lactose thing plays a major part, but I can still tastes a good bit of molasses and dark chocolate. The flavor wasn’t terrible, but I am relatively sure this is not how De Struise intended it to taste. I will have to open up another one this weekend to see if it was just a freak case of one infected bottle.

Picture of the day: Welcome to Chili’s/Friday’s/Applebee’s.