Tap @ Fairbar. Clear golden with a white head. Aroma is sweet, malty, yeasty and fruity. Flavor is quite sweet and light bitter. Sweet finish. 200919

Clear blond appearance with lasting fluffy head. Aroma and flavour have some sweet malts and some noble hop bitterness. Finish is slight yeasty and spicy. Well balanced.

Draft. A golden beer with a lazing beige head. The aroma has notes of straw, malt, and fruits. The flavor is sweet with notes of malt, fruits, hops, and straw, leading to a bitter finish.

The fourth Bucket List Series beer by Musketeers, intended as a Belgian style 'bitter blond', a kind of loose, small and 'unintended' group of those Belgian blonde ales that put emphasis on hop bitterness without direct connection to international IPA tendencies; Dolle's Ara Bier and Kerkom's Bink Blond can be seen as the precursors of this group in the modern sense of the word (since 1983 and 1988 respectively), De Ranke's XX Bitter as its most typical example (since 1998). Anyway, this Musketeers interpretation carries a thick and fluffy, very tightly 'perforated paper'-like lacing, off-white, very stable and closed head, crowning an initially clear, warm and 'metallic' old gold coloured beer with columns of strong visible sparkling rising up from the bottom; misty and somewhat deeper apricot-ochre-tinged with sediment. Aroma of dried field flowers, banana, dough, old dusty 'herbes de Provençe', green pear, soap, raw potato peel, bubblegum, hints of old crumbling cumin cheese, papier maché, apricot, cold French fries, cloves, baking soda. Fruity onset in a crisp, 'yellow-greenish' way, outspoken banana ester with bubblegummy effect but notes of green apple, unripe pear and dried peach as well, restrained in sweetness but rounded still, lively carbonated without that carbonation becoming too harsh, slick, bit glueish mouthfeel, clear soapy wheatiness, white bread dough with sharper grainy edges; a herbal, leafy and grassy hop bitterness dries the final stage, releasing noble hop aromas of dried camomile and bitter herbs as well as bales of straw, while depositing a firm, bit resinous, lovely spicy bitterness on the root of the tongue. Still the banana ester effect and the wheat slickness and bready malt sweetishness remain strong underneath this hop bitterness, making for a balanced malty-hoppy ending with an earthy yeast touch to it, accompanied by a dash of late spicy phenols. Nowadays it would be tempting to call this a Belgian IPA of sorts, but Musketeers intentionally refrained from that moniker, which in a context of old school Belgian ales seems all too trendy - and often inappropriate; this is indeed, by all standards, an old-fashioned Belgian bitter blonde in the tradition of the aforementioned examples. Not bad at all, enjoyable even - provided you are into traditionally shaped Belgian ales.

Coup raté pour cette Musketeers qui se veut être une bitter en affichant ses 60 d'IBU que j'ai vainement cherché au cours de ma dégustation avec une bière s'apparentant finalement plus à une lager un peu plus houblonnée. Les arômes sont en effet peu intéressants sur les céréales, le miel légèrement épicés et agrémenté d'une amertume herbacée. En plein désert, en effet, cela peut rafraîchir, mais dans le style, il y a plus attrayant. Visuellement, le blond doré limpide est joli (EBC de 12), mais sans mousse. L'effervescence n'est d'ailleurs pas très poussée. Le nez présente une amertume sèche avec des arômes de céréales et d'herbes. Pas passionnant. L'attaque, sur un bon équilibre malt/houblon est toujours sur des arômes simples de céréales, de miel et de légères épices. L'amertume herbacée a beaucoup de difficultés à s'exprimer. La deuxième bouche monte à peine sur l'amertume et avec des arômes complètement linéaires. L’arrière-bouche et le final présente tout de même une amertume sèche un peu plus en avant mais loin des 60 d'IBU en ressenti. La corpulence et la longueur sont toutes les deux moyennes et l'alcool à 6,5 % n'apportant rien pour une bière sans grand intérêt.

Imported from my RateBeer account as The Musketeers Bucketlist Series N°4: Cross the Desert (by Brouwerij The Musketeers):
Aroma: 6/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 3/5, Overall: 11/20, MyTotalScore: 3/5

3/V/19 - 33cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ home, BB: 21/III/21 - (2019-662)

Clear blond beer, big creamy aery irregular off-white head, little stable, bit adhesive. Aroma: very fruity, quite some banana, overripe fruits, yeast, malty. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: bit malty, bit sweet, ripe banana, banana peel, bit herbal. Aftertaste: very bitter, malty, grains, cow fodder, banana peel, some almonds.

Huge, whipped eggwhite-like head over clear metallic darker golden beer, not very carbonated visibly. Quite grainy nose, bit garden weeds suggesting bitterness. Faintly toasted. Bitter flavour, continental hops, garden weeds, vegetable, fruitpeel. Bit of cardboard, plastic, sulphur. Quite slick, maybe medium bodied, dry, near metallic finish. Low carbonation. Not sure what the intent might have been. Drinkable, certainly not sweet, but not really remarkable.