Pannepot Old Fisherman's Ale

Review Date 5/31/2024 By John Staradumsky

  Style: Abbey Quad   Brewery: De Struise   Country: Belgium   State: N/A   $ Per OZ: $.78 (G)   ABV: 10%

Boy, is beer getting expensive. To be fair, everything is getting expensive these days, and inflation is certainly out of control. Too many people blame Joe Biden for that, but of course, they’re half wrong, or half right, depending on how you look at it. Biden AND Trump are largely responsible for inflation, because they both signed massive, multi-trillion dollar stimulus packages during Covid. To be sure, this was the right thing to do. It helped people. But the money was printed and borrowed, and I predicted at the time it would cause inflation. One only need look back at Germany between the World Wars to see this coming.

Many people, as I said, blame Biden and not Trump, because the inflation started to manifest in Biden’s first term. These trends occur over time, however, and there simply wasn’t enough time left in Trump’s term for inflation to begin. Had Trump been reelected, and had a second stimulus occurred on his watch, he would have inherited the inflation. It would still have happened. It’s as simple as that.

One thing is clear, though: people hate rising prices. And beer prices are definitely rising. I just paid $25 for a 32-ounce crowler of De Struise Pannepot Old Fisherman’s Ale at the Stout Brothers Woodstock Beer Market. That’s the most I’ve ever paid for a crowler of beer. Ever. That said, it worked out to only a few cents more per ounce than the bottle of Tsjeeses Reserva Belgian Christmas Ale Bourbon Barrel Aged I bought, another De Struise beer, a few years ago.

De Struise says:

At Struise, we love all the beers we make. However, if there should be only one that we should call our ‘flagship’ with right and reason, it’s Pannepot. After a lifetime of brewing tasty, but ‘safer’ beers, this was our first venture into a world of extremities and has a great deal of responsibility in making us into what we are today.

This ‘Old Fisherman’s Ale’, named after the fishing trawlers on which men would risk life and limb to feed their families, sits somewhere in between a Belgian strong dark ale and a stout. It pours a luscious dark brown with a creamy tan head. Each sip hits you with complex flavours of toasty bitterness and deep caramel sweetness. With all its dark and strong complexity, this beer lends itself perfectly to all types of barrel-aging, which is exactly what we’ve done. We’ve aged it on various different barrels, including bourbon and calvados. Don’t miss out and try it soon!

De Struise Pannepot Old Fisherman’s Ale pours to a dark mahogany color with a light head of creamy tan foam and a nose of rich raisin and boozy alcohol. Taking a sip, it’s dark malty and musty yeasty but does not seem as strong as it is, at least not immediately. The dark fruit really pops in the palate, more so than it does in the nose. Here, I get the raisin but also plum and black cherry. There is spice and dry almond, Boozy bourbon and vinous brandy. It’s tart in the finish and satisfying but again does not seem as strong as it is.

As much as this cost, it was worth every penny. At 10% ABV, it’s a strong sipping brew, and I enjoyed the crowler over a few hours of casual sipping. It’s a beer I’ve bever seen in the bottle, let alone on draft, so of course I was all over it. You should be, too.

Glad I tried it?  T

Would I rebuy it??