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McChouffe

This is a funny little beer from an unusual (in my opinion) brewery, Brasserie d'Achouffe. Not many breweries have this kind of sense of humour, or any real sense of humour to be honest (except perhaps Brewdog). Anyway, I discovered this Belgium beer at a Belgian Beer festival in Osaka, Japan in 2011 and I was told that the reason it's called McChouffe is the brewery were trying to create a Scottish style beer. Hence the "Mc". They also have amusing labels on their beers, making their brand easily recognizable with the "friendly elf". (Their website is different to most breweries sites too ).

The brewery itself is pretty new, bearing in mind most Belgian breweries seem to be (or at least claim to be) founded around the time of Christ (bit of an exaggeration perhaps), but this one is as recent as 1982.

Anyway, shall we get on to the beer?

The McChouffe is an "unfiltered dark beer which is re-fermented in the bottle as well as in the keg" (according to their website).
So it's a very dark brown beer, almost black but you can see the brown at the bottom of the glass as the light shines through.
And it has an off-white, yellowy head.

There's dark, roasted malt on the nose buy fairly light, not a bold, overpowering nose.

A medium bodied beer and you can taste the roasted malt on the palate along with some dark toffee notes. It's also quite bitter and dry.

The finish really lingers, especially the bitterness.

Not bad, pretty drinkable but a bit too dark and bitter without any other interesting flavours for me.

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