Verzet Baby Jesus Imperial Porter 330ml

Description from Jason, The International Beer Collector, who kindly brought baby Jesus down under. Cheers Jason!

Brouwers ‘t Verzet are quite an established brewery now, having kicked off in 2011 before finding a home in 2016.  The brewery name is Flemish slang for ‘The Resistance’ and gives a hint as to the style of beers they make.

They have always been known to make beers that aren’t typically Belgian, rather more following US brewing conventions.  And this beer being an Imperial Coffee Porter is much more at home in a US brewery’s portfolio than that of your typical Belgian brewery.

Our beer pours dark and quite thick, and you are immediately hit with a strong aroma of rich dark chocolate.  For a coffee beer, I thought the coffee in the aroma was slow to present (which as a non-coffee drinker I wasn’t displeased about).

There was a very quick glimpse of the chocolate malt sweetness but that quickly gave way to the sharpness of the roasted malt and dark chocolate bite.  The coffee was a little more evident in the flavour, but still somewhat restrained.

As the beer warms, more of those deep malt flavours come out to cover those sharp edges becoming fuller and smoother.  For a big beer, it finishes quite dry with a pleasant lingering dark chocolate and roasted malt twang.