6.8

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

Big yellow-cream head, dense and rather stable over hazy foxy amber beer. Bit silty, mineral nose, "hot" spices (ginger?), lavender, cake/toast, mint, cypress. Spicy, bit of human sweat, toasted malts; finish is quite dry with conifer as cypress, cedar,... Some phenolic flavours, and again some notes of lavender and simili. Light to medium bodied, good carbonation, oily-slick feel. The "gebalanceerde kruiding" from the blurb is mostly a perfumey lavender prevalence, and that is not a kind of flavourprofile that keeps one drinking avidly. Oh well.

6.6

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5

33cl bottle from Carrefour Market Cours St. Michel. F: big, tan, almost good retention. C: amber to brown, hazy. A: mellow fruity, brett touch, orange peels, bit caramel, dried fruits, spicy. T: medium malty base, mellow fruity, dried fruits, caramel, bit brett, herbal, spicy, medium to high carbonation, actually not bad, enjoyed.

6.2

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

The first product from a hypercommercial young beer project in Bruges, one of many Belgian beers nowadays with modern, English language longneck bottles containing all too traditional beer, I'm afraid - and what is worse, nowhere on either the bottle nor the website is to be found where this brew is actually made, so my guess of this coming from the kettles of Eutropius is as good as any other. Anyway: thick and quite frothy, off-white, rather large-bubbled but stable, sparsely lacing head on a misty, deep orange-veiled amber beer with somewhat 'dirty ochre' tinge. Very herbal and hugely phenolic aroma of bog-myrtle, spice cookies and old gingerbread, cloves, dried apple peel, soggy peanuts, old rubber, 'horseblanket' (Brett!), dried yarrow, 'bouillon de veau' (4-vinyl-guaiacol), band aid, hints of dried orange peel, dry earth, old tea bags, vague wet cigarette tobacco. Fruity, estery onset, sweetish but not overly so, hints of dried peach, medlar and apple peel, dryish further on (and eventually very dry) with medium carbonation and some minerally side notes; slick, weirdly somewhat 'empty' but supple body, peanutty and bread-crusty malt profile (five malt variants have been used here apparently), low in sweetness with a toasted seed-like effect but also something old brown bread-like. Ends very herbal-spicy and phenolic, with that bog-myrtle aspect returning strongly, alongside cloves and dried thyme; the phenols, alas, do not stick to simple spiciness, but exceed this effect and go into band aid-, cooked leftover meat- and smoky burnt rubber-like overdrive. I also get a clear horseblanket- and wet leather-like Brettanomyces effect, which I suppose is intentional, considering the comparison of an old and a young sample published on the brewery's website - something that in Belgium is traditionally done with Orval. Underneath the phenols and the Brett effect, a peppery, slightly leafy hop bitterness develops and lingers a bit along with dry bread crumb-like yeastiness. In its overall concept, this creation was clearly inspired by the great Orval, still extremely popular among traditional Belgian consumers and young craft beer geeks alike; feels like a cheap way to 'update' Orval package-wise and profit from its success at the same time. Orval is hard to imitate, but this has been done at several occasions in the past years, even by foreign brewers (see Mikkeller's Hva Såå!?, for example), and this is a travesty compared with some of those. Even without the Orval comparison that sprung to mind here: needs cleaning up, needs more body, less spicing, more balance, more body and far less phenols, which I assume are part of the Brett refermentation gone a bit awry in this case. Less flashy hipster posing and more content please! Oh, and point off for not revealing the actual brewery that produced it.

6

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

11/04/2019 @home - 33cl bottle from a trade with ttderoeck. Clear orange, huge pearly head. Nose is fruits, spices. Taste is malt, quite spicy, bit bitterness, bit orange.

6.2

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

Bottle from Deconinck, Vichte. Hazy orange colour, white foam. Rather spicy and yeasty, notes of orange peel. Ok brew but not exciting, rather boring.

Mossel nog vis... Patatten puree... Herbal.

6.1

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 5.5

Imported from my RateBeer account as Stil Ende Bar Belge (by Stil Ende Brouwerij):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 11/20, MyTotalScore: 3/5

31/X/18 - 33cl bottle from Poperings Bierfestival, shared @ Bosrijk Efteling, BB: 16/IV/21 - (2018-1621)

Pretty cloudy orange beer, big creamy yellowish head, falls down to a small layer of thick creamy foam, little adhesive. Aroma: ripe banana, little spicy, some green apples, more spices, coriander, grains of paradise. MF: lively carbon, medium body. Taste: spicy start, some coriander, orange peel, little bitter, liquorish touch, bit yeasty, some sweet malts. Aftertaste: aniseed, some banana, bit yeasty, little sourish, some banana peel, more yeast, bit lemony, apple peel.

6

Imported from untappd on 02-05-2020

6.8

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7

26 July 2018. At Republiek, Bruges. Cheers to Ian!
Brand new beer by a brand new nanobrewery in Bruges, located at the beloved 'Stil Ende' spot; not much is known about it currently - apparently brewed at Eutropius. The waiter at Republiek compared it somewhat to Orval, so here it goes. Pours hazy amber, brownish, with a lasting, foamy, off-white head; some lacing. Sweetish aroma at first: overripe fruit, banana, prune, berries, marzipan, cookie dough & caramel, some yeast and spicy notes of cinnamon, perhaps even coriander popping up. Medium malty sweet onset with hints of ripe fruit, prune & faint banana, bread & dough. A yeasty profile takes over, with a medium grassy bitterness and a spicy note added to that. In the back, there's a faint berry-like sour touch and a note of almond, though the bitterness already renders a slightly metallic effect. Dry, grassy hoppy finish, drying even, more spicy notes and again, a slightly metallic effect, subverting its expected quenching character. Medium body, slick, quite 'fluffy' texture, fizzy carbonation. Indeed quite a 'wayward' beer in that aroma and taste don't really connect and the drinker is fooled. The malty aroma suggest more sweetness, in any case I feel it needs some 'cleaning'. The taste contains too little of the promised sourness and loses itself too much in the yeasty & spicy direction. Still, it has a rather modern hoppy character and I would gladly try this again. And for what it's worth, dear waiter at Republiek: no, I can't compare it to Orval.