3

--- Beer merged from original tick of Perfect Match NA - Perfect met Wit Vlees on 01 Jan 2020 at 17:13 - Score: 3

4.2

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 4 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 4

20th Aug 2019, Shrewsbury monthly share at Chez Sophie. Cheers to me for this offering: 33cl bottle, BB 8th Jul 2020. Light straw coloured body, white topping. Aroma like a grain silo, tasted like a watered down grain silo and turned ugly as it warmed in the glass.

3.9

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 3.5

330ml bottle @ monthly tasting, Chez Sophie August '19. Thanks Jeremy for this 0.3% 'beer'. Pours misty milky yellow, frothy pure white head that sticks around. Aroma is a bit cat pissy, herbal, tired zest. Thin body, as expected, a little herbal, bitter but generally just lacking in all departments. If I was alcohol-free, i'd probably take a coke over this.

5.8

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5

We are in the midst of a non- and low-alcohol beer hype in Belgium right now, a hype I largely fail to appreciate so far because most of it is produced by the established family and industrial breweries, but admittedly it is interesting to see how new alternatives to the old non-alcoholic pale lagers are being created today – and Delhaize, the supermarket chain that commissions these Perfect Match beers from the ‘Proef’brouwerij, has now come up with an alcohol-free version of the regular Perfect Match beer intended to accompany ‘white meat’ and fowl. This (close to) non-alcoholic version is bottled in small bottles, whereas the regular comes from 75 cl bottles. The sample upon which this rating is based, comes from the renewed Delhaize plant in Lokeren. Thick and very frothy, cobweb-lacing, snow white, large-bubbled yet stable head over a misty pale straw blonde beer with greenish tinge and very lively sparkling sustaining the head. Rather weird aroma – as usual with non-alcoholic beers – of raw leek, baking powder, soap, pumice, old and disintegrating polyester cloth especially in the end, green apple, minerals, bath foam, dried out white bread, salted lemon flesh. Neutral onset, a tad sourish due to very lively, very minerally carbonation, almost like soda; early on, a dull graininess develops, becoming a tad more rounded in the middle, with a light white bread-ish side but in all remaining very grainy. From the middle onwards, a firm and robust hop bitterness is added, ‘wormwoody’ and tonic water-like with light floral-grassy notes, lingering in a spicy, resiny way over the root of the tongue for quite a long time. Kind of like a Belgian ‘bitter blond’ in low alcohol form, but frankly the thin grainy body lacks the strength to support such a robust hop bitterness, so that the whole becomes a bit harsh in the end. Perhaps more aromatic New World hoppiness would have been a better choice, but then the Belgian consumer / Delhaize customer in the broader sense of the word may still not be sufficiently accustomed to that… Still, compared with what you traditionally find among non-alcoholic or nearly non-alcoholic beers, this is at least original and less unpleasant than I was fearing. Needless to say, I’d prefer the regular one if I must accompany my chicken or turkey dish with these customized Delhaize beers, though – and I won’t go into the food-pairing discussion of which other beers can probably make that match better than either of these two.

4.3

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 4 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 5

F: big, white, good retention. C: yellowish, hazy. A: malty, grainy, grassy, bit floral and citrus. T: grainy, artificial prominent long lasting bitterness, citrus, bit oily mouthfeel, grassy, light to almost medium body, medium carbonation, too strong harsh bitterness to be really enjoyable beer, 33cl bottle from Delhaize Chazal @ Schaerbeek in Brussels.