Da Boy Tommie

Purty dern nice. Always a pleasure to find a northern Belgian saison.

Not the first saison Dok dedicated to one of their permanent employees, a new version hopped with Jester and the more familiar Fuggles; from tap at Kantien at the Watersportbaan. Very moussey, egg-white, thick and frothy head over a misty ochre-tinged golden blonde robe. Aroma of spiced crackers, minerals, herbes de Provençe, abbey cheese rind, white pepper, fresh raw potato, cereals. Painfully numbing overcarbonation - as is apparently still all too often the case in beers tapped by Dok itself (or at Dok-owned Kantien in this case) - distracting from the actual flavours and adding too much stingy minerality even for a saison; elements of green pear, cucumber and unripe peach shyly pierce through this onslaught of carbon dioxide. Cereally cracker-like, grainy core, smooth and straightforward pale maltiness, slowly bittered by leafy, spicy, long-stretched hoppiness, resinous and drying, bringing retronasal notes of grass and again those dry old 'herbes de Provençe'. Very classically styled saison - or dry Belgian blonde, because what is the difference anyway - but too overcarbonated to be judged properly. I guess I will have to revisit this one from a can.

24/I/26 - 33cl can from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ home, BB: 30/XII/26, batch DOK283 (2026-70)

Pretty cloudy yellow beige beer, big irregular off-white head, unstable, a bit adhesive. Aroma: ripe banana, a bit yeasty, grains, cow fodder, sweet impression, hay. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: malty start, a little bitter, pretty yeasty, banana peel, a bit herbal, grassy bitterness, spicy, some coriander and cardamom, pretty dry. Aftertaste: hoppy, dry, a bit malty, quite some banana, banana peel, hay, grains, metallic touch, malty finish, ok.