De Molen tabernacle takeover month continues with this angelically aromatic beer! Smoky. Like a full on rauchbier, which really is the main direction that SmokeBeerMinistry is driving at; think campfires, charcoal grills, and smokehouses. Although there are some beers with a low smoke profile that score high, the campfire smoky flavor almost always catapults the score well above average. Bloed, Zweet, & Tranen beer by De Molen Brouwerij is a good example of a good beer by a great brewery, who would benefit by focusing on filtering and/or minimizing the particles floating around inside their beers. I don’t mind a little silt here and there in unpasteurized, unfiltered beers, but that changes the product over time, and it might help the customer if they knew what they were going to get before opening. This beer had tons of flakes all swirling around in there. Plus, carbonation really starts to fade after a few years, and these De Molen beers are such slow movers on liquor store shelves, that it’s rare to find anything younger that 3 years old. This sweet and smoky stout delivers the personification of a rich person drinking from a snifter, although I only have this shaker glass to drink from. I didn’t get any chocolate or coffee notes out of this, just rich smoke, sugar, and a touch of peat in there. I would like to drink this again, perhaps something right out of the brewery, but I’m not too keen on paying another $8+ for a gamble on something that may have gone awry in the bottle. Bloed, Zweet, & Tranen is sweet, smoky, good. Overall smokestack metric = 5.75 smokestacks
| Brewer | De Molen |
| Beer Name | Bloed, Zweet, & Tranen |
| Brewer’s Description | Bloed, Zweet & Tranen is not for those looking for something easy. Heavily smoked, loads of chocolate and roasted malts. Yet a beer you can still enjoy all evening long. Flavourindication: Smoke, chocolate, roasted malts. Translates as Blood Sweat & Tears |
| Food Pairings | Pecan pie, Smoked almonds or pistachios, digestifs |
| Brewer Location | Bodegraven, the Netherlands |
| Alcohol content by volume | 8.2% |
| IBU (International Bitterness Units) | 29 EBU |
| Beer opacity rate 1 – 7 (light – dark) | 5.8 (EBC 169) |
| Smell smoke? 1 – 7 (No – George Burns) | 6.7 |
| Smokepower taste: 1 – 7 Smokestacks | 5 |
| Sausage detection? Y or N | N |
| Beer thickness 1-7 (water – used motor oil) | 6 |
| Overall Happiness Rating: 1-7 (low – high) | 5.75 |
Here’s there website:
Here’s part 2 for SMOKE CHASER, the bourbon barrel aged smoked barley wine beer by Tioga-Sequoia. There are no more than 999 of these still floating around out there, so if you want one, go now, but you should probably read this review first. Smoke Chaser Bourbon Barrel is one of 3 variants SmokeBeerMinistry got our hands on to review which began right after pouring it into the big glass seen above. It’s a lighter hue than the rye barrel variant, but considerably cloudier, however, my light meter shone (shined?) right through the glass, illuminating the entire beer like a light bulb, so a not so opaque beer. This beer smells about the same as the rye barrel variant, leaving a pronounced barley wine scent in the general vicinity of the pour. Smoke is there but on the expected lighter end given cherry wood was used in the smoking process. And the taste starts out as bitter; I like mine sweet, not bitter. You get used to the bitterness pretty quickly, probably because the 15.1% alcohol numbs every section of your palate (maybe I should have gone with the small pours as TS recommended). Barrel aging usually improves beers for me, but I can only hope this is not the case here. Smoke Chaser Bourbon Barrel is a bit frustrating, proper ingredients were used, barrel aging is a time consuming process, but the finished product is a below average score. In this particular case, I’d recommend backing down with some of the competing elements; cap it at 10% ABV, use less hops, and shorter barreling times. I’m a little concerned with the Smoke Chaser Double Barrel variant coming up next week. Tioga-Sequoia works to make progress towards our standards with a 3.25 overall smokestack rating (out of 7).
SmokeBeerMinistry 