International Men of Leisure; the one with the different label

This month, and boy did we ever cut it close, we take a look at a beer brewed by Brouwerij De Molen out of the Netherlands.  In an extremely roundabout way, we finally tripped into a great story about the way a beer gets marketed/sold in Europe, and how differently it has to be sold in the US.

De Molen is fairly prevalent in Europe, and brew a quantity of beers that rival any brewery in the States (side note: Untappd lists 58 different beers.)  In the US, they are imported by Shelton Brothers.  Always on the lookout for a brand that is sold in France as well as the US for IMOL, De Molen has come up on several occasions.  You can sometimes spot them at Whole Foods, I've seen a bunch in Delaware at Total Wine, and they had a killer selection at State Line in Elkton MD.  But for the longest time, when I was comparing pictures of the De Molen beers on Parisian shelves to what was available here, I was just not finding a match.  Enter a podcast from Good Beer Hunting (GBH,) and it started to make sense.  Most of the hoppy beers that De Molen brews don't make their way to the states.  For obvious reasons, they are much better beers without the miles, and consumed closer to the brewery.  And one brand, their Russian Imperial Stout Rasputin, had to be renamed here.  So every time I perused a shelf of De Molen beers, looking for Rasputin, I could never find it.  Until it was pointed out to me that the beer's named Cease & Desist in the States.  Thanks a lot North Coast Brewing.  So Entry Three in the IMOL blog is an identical beer, with two completely different names.


I finally grabbed Cease & Desist at The Beer Store in Malvern, PA.  It was roughly $13 for a 12 oz bottle.  Woof.  As silly as this is going to sound, Rasputin/Cease & Desist is such a well constructed, fantastic beer, that there is not a ton to write about.  Just water, malt, hops and yeast, there's no crazy ingredients to jump out at you.  It doesn't smell or taste like a pastry bakery.  There's not added star anise.  There's just a full bodied Russian Imperial Stout, with a heavy roast, balanced by a strong bitterness.  That's it.  Neither of us could believe how well the 11.4% abv was hidden.  There was a little age, that came off as a salt/peanut note, and as it warmed mixed with chocolate to give a hint of Goobers.  There were some soy notes (I didn't get that strong a note until close the very end, almost 2 hours after the cap was popped,) but nothing overpowering, and definitely something to expect in a stout with an abv like this that has sat around a while.  At one point I was getting salt licorice notes.  So since there's not much to say about the liquid, other than it's a phenomenal representation of the style, let's get into some info about the difference in branding.

The first two pictures are of the US Cease & Desist label.  There are notes in articles that at one point, shortly after the trademark matter was files, the name was changed to Disputin.  I will note something that I think is hilarious, which is the note that De Molen added, "This stout used to be called Rasputin, but the people who make Old Rasputin in California thought you were too dumb to tell the two products apart, and threatened to sue us for trademark infringement.  Think about this when you're looking for a way to spend your hard-earned beer money."  They don't sound bitter or anything.  Maybe they don't have trademarks in the Netherlands.  All the stouts there are probably called Rasputin.  This bottle was stamped with a bottled date of Dec 18, 2014, so it was a little over 2 years old.  On the front of the bottle is a note that's included in the label saying "Enjoy within 25 years."  The age probably contributed a little bit to the beer, and I would assume mellowed the alcohol notes, but at 11%, it is still extremely impressive that those notes are pretty much absent from the nose and profile.  De Molen has great labels.  They are simple, but because of that they really set themselves apart.  You could see them from across the room and be able to identify the brewery.

The next pictures are from the bottles purchased in France.  Without the tongue lashing to Old Rasputin, the balance of the information, although formatted slightly different, is the same.  I've become extremely jealous of the bottled/best before format dating that most of the bottles in France seem to get.  I don't know if that's a European code, or what the import regulations are between France/Belgium/UK/Netherlands/Etc., but that format gives you so much more than a hidden date on most of the bottles in the US.  The date on this bottle was 5/29/2015, so it was a little younger.  The soy/salt combo was pointed out through this bottle first.  Both poured pretty black, slight highlights on the edges, and with low but acceptable carbonation for the style and age.

We finally got an interesting story about a beer and it's distribution that is a little less than normal.  I enjoyed it enough that I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for other De Molen beers.  If anything, I'm disappointed that there weren't more articles to be found about the trademark claim.  But since it seemed to be solved quickly without actually going to court, I guess you just get notes on blogs like this.  Love that they kept the note on Cease & Desist about the "California Brewery."

We very much enjoyed this beer, and I know I'm already looking forward to the next IMOL, or whatever we will continue to call these since I will have slightly less leisure in a couple weeks.