Perfect Match NA Rood Vlees / Viande Rouge
Delhaize in Brussel / Bruxelles / Brussels, Brussels Capital Region, Belgium 🇧🇪
Brewed at/by: De ProefbrouwerijNon Alcoholic / Low Alcohol Special Out of Production
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Score
5.35
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Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 2 | Overall - 4
F: big, white, good retention. C: gold, light hazy. A: grainy, wort, bit papery, fruity touch, floral. T: malty watery, bit grassy, fruity touch, grassy, decent bitterness, light body and medium carbonation, for what it is almost ok, drinkable, 33cl bottle from Delhaize Chazal in Brussels.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3
Delhaize persevering in this 'Perfect Match' theme, sales are satisfactory I suppose, with this non-alcoholic version of the Rood Vlees variant, which is a Tettnanger-hopped tripel (I still have to try it). Bottle from the Delhaize plant in Lokeren. Very tightly, intricately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, snow white, mousy head, medium thick and well-retaining, bit irregular, over a lightly hazed, warm and pure 'old gold' coloured beer with very pale orangey tinge. Aroma of any typical non-alcoholic pale lager imitation: wet cotton, rubber, popcorn, sweetish grains, papier maché, cold pasta, wet grass, highly industrial white bread, dried camomile flowers from the Tettnanger, raw sweet turnip. Weirdly sweet onset, refined white sugar almost, neutral in terms of esteriness, medium carb with some minerally effects, slick mouthfeel but admittedly feeling a little bit 'fuller' than its 0.3% ABV content would suggest; sweet graininess everywhere, sweeter even than the average non-alcoholic blonde, with a popcorn- and aspartame-like 'emptiness' to it yet countered by a somewhat out of place hoppy bitterishness in the finish, grassy and simple but adding some lingering, leafy bitterness - even if that aspartame- and popcorn-like, rubbery artificial sweetishness survives beyond that. Rubbery, too sweet with a weird hop bitter accent popping in but not fitting in all too well, I'm actually glad I tasted this one before its 'complete' and alcoholic standard version: that one can only be better. Brewing a decent non-alcoholic beer, in spite of all the attempts being made these days, is still not a real thing, it seems. Not that I care, to be honest, because this whole non-alcoholic hype sweeping the Low Countries is gradually beginning to annoy me a bit: there are plenty of non-alcoholic drinks outside of beer, so what's the point? Anyway, Delhaize, for being a plain old supermarket, should be given some credit for the fact that they seem to be aware of certain tendencies in the beer world more than any other supermarket chain in Belgium. As for this one: nice try, but not my thing at all.