6.9

Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7

375mL bottle, 2025 vintage, drunk 8/13/25.
Clear, blonde. Small, white head, very quickly to ring.
Nice maltiness with honey and light biscuit. Clean without crude esters/phenols. Stone fruit, light cedar, light black pepper and more honey lingering.
Lots of honey almost to the point of oxidation. Gets biscuity, bready, maybe not quite oxidized. Lots of vanilla, black and white pepper and a medium body that dries out via phenols. Can't shake the feeling that it's somehow oxidized, though there is still appropriate carbonation. Low fruitiness. Really just a lot of honey-like character and pepper phenols. Very little complexity, though to be fair, in that sense, it comes off much like many ubiquitous, actual Belgian blonde ales. No booze or crudeness, though, and it's pretty well-attenuated. Some hop, even just a touch, would go a long way here, or even some bigger fruitiness from the yeast.