Bands, festivals and the lot are releasing branded booze by the dozens these days. GRIMM makes it its mission to get to the bottom (of the bottle) of this trend with insightful reviews and extra backgrounds. So sit back, PICK YOUR POISON, and discover all you need to know about your favorite band’s alcoholic brands! 

Poison Fact Sheet

• Festival: Devils Rock for an Angel
• Poison name: Devils Beer (for Angels)
• Poison style: beer – blond
• ABV: 8%
• IBU: /
• Brewery: Castalia (Belgium)

(ABV = Alcohol By Volume; IBU = International Bittering Units)

Story

The Devils Beer is not just a commercial gimmick, but a brew with a specific purpose. Just as the whole festival behind it, Devils Rock for an Angel, Devils Beer was created with the goal to raise money for charity. Since 2015 the festival team works hard to bring together metalheads with an exciting line-up for the support of three good causes:

• Kom Op Tegen Kanker is an organisation fighting to beat cancer through raising awareness and creating funding for support of patients, relatives and further scientific research.
• Villa Rozenrood is a place where a sick child can have all the care it needs, while relatives have a moment to let go of the everyday worries and burdens.
• Saying Goodbye is an organisation that supports people who recently lost a loved one.

Be sure to read more about the whole background story on the festival’s website. For this year’s edition already 8 bands have been announced: Beyond The Labyrinth, Primal Creation, Oceans Burning, Anwynn, Vanaheim, Xaon, Crossplane and Hexa Mera. We eagerly wait to hear the name of the final band and headliner next week on their Facebook page! But with a line-up like this it promises to be a wonderful edition. So get your tickets in time through the festival’s official website. Appointment on the 28th of September in Ypres! If you can’t wait until then, go over to their webshop and treat yourself to their beer!

Tasting

Appearance: we see a firm and mousse-like egg white head on top of a blond to orange beer. Pour carefully as it contains quite some flakes of the abundant yeast sediment!

Aroma: the nose is soft and light, reminiscent rather of a sweet tripel than a straightforward blond. We also get some cookies and biscuit notes with spices.

Mouthfeel: medium body, medium carbonation. The 8% alcohol is on par. It’s not hidden, but at the same time not overwhelming at all. You just taste you’re dealing with a stronger beer.

Flavor: the cookie flavors return in the malty body, as well as the notes of spices. The surprise is the introduction of depth through dried oranges. A pleasant touch that is unfortunately disrupted a bit by the more wry, soapy finish. We blame this on the yeast sediment we had underestimated a bit. So please poor this beer carefully!

Overall, the Devils Beer is more than decent strong blond which leans more towards a spiced tripel in our opinion. A pleasant treat for your taste buds if you want a break from all the lagers at the festival!

Packaging

The type of bottle has changed over the years and editions. Last year’s brew came in a Steinie or ‘Duvel bottle’ format. On the label we read the details that the beer is brewed by Castalia in the kettles of Brouwerij De Feniks. You might still remember Castalia from our Turbowarrior of Steel‘s Crossover Partybeer review.

The label is simple yet very lively. We see two drunk figures sitting at a bar on the forefront. One is a devil enthusiastically waving his pot of beer with his eyes very tipsy. The other figure, a blond long haired angel has a little more difficulty keeping upright. One thing is for sure, this Devils Beer makes for a good strong drink, but drink too much of it during the festival and you might and up as these two on the label!

Goes Best With…

We hope this benevolent organisation can keep up the good work much longer. Retain the fight! Enjoy Primal Creation and all the other bands together with us on the 28th of September in Ypres!