Chouffe 0.0% Sans Alcool - Alcohol Free

The new follow-up (and replacement) to Chouffe 0.4%, which was apparently only a 'stepping stone' to this new 0.0% version, even though by legal standards the 0.4% already qualified as an alcohol-free beer... I wonder how they moved from very little alcohol (the result of a fermentation with a special yeast strain) to no alcohol at all, was the last drop of alcohol removed by good old vacuum destillation or did they use a new non-alcoholic yeast strain? Off-white, fine mesh-lacing, medium thick, regular and stable head on a crystal clear, deep and pure 'old golden' robe with even a very light amberish tinge, and fine-bubbled sparkling in the middle. Aroma of white chewing gum, plaster, apple peel, cold pasta, coriander seed, old wallpaper paste, burnt paper or burnt matches (oddly - probably linked to pasteurisation), rubber tyres (dito), sulfur. Sweetish onset, very clean and sleek, plaster-like with hints of green banana and apple peel, finely tingling but very active carbonation with minerally background effect through a very slick body with almost wallpaper paste- or glue-like side effects - even something vaguely tooth paste-like. Quite neutral at first, a bitterishness develops in the end, from hops and possibly coriander but only vaguely so, yet still lingering a bit in the finish, as do these glue-, sulfur- and plaster-like effects. I was not the greatest fan of La Chouffe in its original form (though at that time it admittedly still had a bit of its own personality), have seen it decline even further after Moortgat took over in 2008 and then further when first a "light" version appeared and then that 0.4% version - an evolutionary path downwards ending with this even less appealing 0.0%. Tastes like a non-alcoholic pale lager of twenty years ago, too... Refreshing alright, but so is mineral water. One of their products may even be worse and that is the also new non-alcoholic version of that awful Cherry Chouffe I still have to taste - and surely a non-alcoholic version of its raspberry brother is in the making too. The decline of this brand is a sad thing to establish - why not bend the curve and create an upscale specialty version in 75 cl bottles, for example a barrel aged N'Ice Chouffe or something alike?