Dutch Beer of the Week

WILDERVANKER BROUWERIJ SCHEEPSJOAGER QUADRUPEL

Here's an obscurity for you.  There are around 540 breweries or beer firms currently operating in the Netherlands and while the head-turning stars are well known the Dutch beer landscape is heavily populated by concerns like this.  Small. sometimes part-time, operations with a very localised distribution. You won't find their beers on the shelves of the Amsterdam beer shops.

Wildervank is a small village south-east of Groningen and I think I picked this up in a beer shop in that city a year or so ago. So who or what is Brouwerij Wildervanker?  Obviously I first turned to Tim Skelton's Beer in the Netherlands where the update, perhaps unpromisingly, tells me this is a "hobby brewer making a wide range of beer styles with mixed results since 2014"

There has certainly been a wide range of styles at the brewery's RateBeer entry shows.  Wildervanker Brouwerij was launched in August 2014 and is the project of ex-lorry driver Jan Abbingh, and who had been home-brewing for 25 years. The rather neat little brewery appears to be located in a converted large garage as can be seen from the photographs here. Apart from his own range of beers Jan also produces a range of Borrie Craft beers which has its own Facebook page but of which I know absolutely nothing.

So what about this then? At 9% it's perhaps a little low strength for the style  and pours a very dark brown. The nose is light with touches of dried fruit, caramel sweetness and also a slight vegetable note I'm not sure should have been there.  Drinking though it's quite full-on with caramel, toffee and sweet dark malts. Swilling the beer around my mouth I also picked up an odd quinine note and a herbal sweetness that reminded me rather of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. Above all though there was huge, warming alcohol which lingered long into the finish.

I must admit I'm still not entirely sure I liked this but if I come across another Wildervanker beer I'll certainly give it a go.