Struise St Amatus 12

Now for a beer that since its introduction a couple of years ago has been high on my "to try" list.
So during the last Bruges beer festival I paid a visit to the Struise shop situated on the Burg and (along with a few other bottles) purchased myself a couple.

The label on the bottle has a church window design and features all 4 brewers (Peter, Urbain, Carlo and Phil) portrayed as saints - the reason behind this....well a Canadian reporter called them a set of self promoting bastards, so they thought "we'll show him" and put themselves on the label, and to top that portray themselves as Gods at the same time.

Also the name - St Amatus was a Benedictine monk and the hometown of the Struise brewery (Oostvleteren) is the only parish to patron St Amatus as a saint.

On with the beer, like many on offer from Struise what we have here is a dark beer whose ABV hits double figures (10.5%) so it pours that characteristic deep, dark mahogany (almost black) with a ruby /  plum like hue topped by a huge coffee coloured head that quickly falls to a thin cap.

Powerful aroma of liquorice, a heavy dose of deep dark fruits, rich and roasted malts, black coffee and a sweet, dark muscovado sugar finish - intense and heavy stuff indead.

Taste can only follow that heady aroma.....and it does - initially you get sweet, rich, roasted malts then loads of dark dried fruits (raisins, prunes and figs) also a hint of tart cherry, lots of caramel / toffee sweetness (almost molasses like) the finish has faint touches of spice and tobacco leaf.

So yes another great beer from them self promoting bastards.