Milk & Honey Art & Craft Belgian Ale Beer Casks

The Milk & Honey Distillery from Tel Aviv, Israel, has just released four new releases in the so-called Art & Craft series. It concerns four releases of their malt that has matured on special beer casks! I start, with great pleasure, with the Belgian Ale Beer Casks. The barrels come from Jem's Beer Factory in Rehovot, Israel, on which their Jem's 8.8 beer – actually a Belgian Ale Style – matured after a regular maturation in bourbon casks got to spend another 6 months.

First things first: that nose is tasty! It all starts very sweet on yellow fruit and stone fruit, but soon there is a nice bitter and slightly sour touch, which indeed reminds me of strong blond beer. Pale Ale, so to speak. That's great.

Mouth coating, almost creamy feeling. Although I immediately discover on the palate that this is actually still very young stuff. A bit alcoholic and sharply peppered, which makes the yellow fruit a bit more difficult to shine this time. Grapefruit comes to mind, as well as some licorice and candied lime peels. Soft bitterness, drying considerably.

That continues in the medium long finish, leaving the mouth completely dry.

Again a very nice expression from this distillery, which has conquered a place in my heart. Unfortunately, the taste can't quite fulfill the promise of the nose. And I find the name 'Belgian Ale Beer Casks' a bit misleading, because I really thought it would concern Belgian beer casks. But that’s just me. After all, Belgian Ale is a style that can be made almost anywhere. But still...