Brouwers Verzet formed out of three friends who’d graduated from Ghent’s prestigious brewing school in 2008. They all marched off to their various brewing jobs but realized they missed experimenting so they started building a home brewing set up. Brewing up their own recipes they came up with the name Brewers Resistance (Brouwers Verzet in Dutch) as they were resisting their daytime jobs repetitive brewing functions to create new, fun recipes.
By 2011, they were brewing their own recipes at Gulden Spoor Brewery in larger batches. In 2012, they switched over to De Ranke. De Ranke encourages people to use their new brewery as long as they’re brewing authentic beers in the manner De Ranke would brew. In 2013, they started doing some of their brewing at Brewery Toye.
Their Oud Bruin “Old Brown” is a blend of 6 month old beer aged in oak and fresh beer. The bottle is vintage dated because each year the beer is blended to taste and will be slightly different in character. This is their 2013 edition.
Appearance: Brown with ruby highlights, light tan head, poor retention.
Aroma: Toffee, earthy, mossy, light balsamic character, chocolate notes, oak, apples.
Taste: Lightly tart, apple cider tones, citrus rind.
Overall Impression: This is a really nice entrance into the Oud Bruin range. It’s got a unique character that sets it apart from others yet is still well within style guidelines. Overall, this is a very nicely balanced beer that balances the sweetish malty aspects of the style with tart contrasting aspects. Best of all, it’s starting become available in the United States so give it a try if you see it pop up in your local shop.
Availability: In small quantities, newly available in the US via Artisanal Imports.
6% ABV
Notes: Tasted January 25, 2016 and Best By October 26, 2023.
Special thanks to Kevin at Belgian Beer Geek for sending this beer my way via one of our beer trades.