7.4

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Bottle 0,33ltr: Hazy orange colored brew with an good dry bitter taste and hints of orange, citrus and pine. All those well balanced, next to this one the black IPA version.

5

Reasonable

7

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

Bottle. Amber color, hay. Grapefruit, peach and melon in the somewhat grassy aroma. Almost tart flavor with mago, grassy hops and grapefruit. Well made IPA

7

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

Cloudy amber, huge offwhite fluffy head. Caramely aroma, smooth ripe stonefruit. Sweet, caramely and fruity flavour.

6.9

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

Fles gedeeld door Inoven. Het is een oranje bruin bier met een medium schuimkraag. Het heeft een hoppige geur. De smaak is hoppig, bitter met een licht wrange afdronk.

6.2

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

Flesje gedeeld met Tomhendriksen. Oranje-achtig bier, licht troebel met stevig schuim. Aroma van gist. Smaak is hoppig, nasmaak is bitter.

6.9

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

The ’ordinary’ IPA made for De Bieradviseur, bottle from the Prik & Tik in Zele; curious about this one, as I had the black version before and really enjoyed it. Thick, frothy, regular, egg-white, very moussy, lacing head over a hazy peach blonde beer with warm orange tinge. Aroma of dried orange flesh, banana bread and even light bubblegum, ripe melon, overripe mango, cake dough, bitter honey, canned apricot, pink pepper, strawberry jam, fresh toast, soap, old ginger powder, straw, peach, old paper, Madeleine biscuits, raw cauliflower. Spritzy onset, very minerally due to strong (over-)carbonation, souring and numbing a bit, but not entirely blocking a play of sweetish banana, peach and red apple on the one hand and sourish redcurrant, unripe kiwi and gooseberry on the other hand, subdued esters and in that sense starting off quite ’Belgian’, supple and lean mouthfeel coarsened by the strong carbo. Cereally and very lightly caramelly middle, bit soapy as well, certainly not all barley (see label too: "bevat gerstemout", which often says enough), while the fruity esters go along, banana remaining fairly at bay. Finish brings a relieving, spicy, notably floral and mildly citrusy, only lightly aromatic hop bitterness, but it seems to remain rather superficial in comparison with the legions of Anglo-Saxon IPAs it tries to imitate - resulting in that soapiness and even traces of the banana ester to pass through quite undisturbed. Ends with a certain amount of spicy hoppiness, but it’s the malt sweetness and some yeasty aspects that last. Clearly the intentions were good here, but as usual in this country, they failed to make a full-fledged ’new’ (i.e. internationally oriented) IPA: though a very decent beer by itself, breathing technical perfection like many other brews coming from Anders these days, the concept lacks in audacity and expressive hoppiness. This is way too soapy and estery for an IPA of international standard; at best, this is to be seen as a ’Belgian IPA’, i.e. a compromise between classic (blonde) Belgian ale styles and ’real’ IPA - in other words, not an IPA at all, until ’Belgian IPA’ is recognized as a separate style here. If that were the case, this would be a very good and technically perfect example of it. As an IPA in the general, international sense: too soapy, too Belgian and not (aromatically) hoppy enough for me. In conclusion: basically just a Belgian blonde ale with a forwarded hop profile, as there are so many these days, but technically so well executed that it can serve as an example of this hybrid ’style’.

8

--- Beer merged from original tick of eXcalibur IPA on 06 May 2016 at 22:18 - Score: 8

6.5

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

Leicht trübes orange goldenes Bier mit einer geringen leicht beigen Schaumkrone. Geruch mild grasig hopfig, kaum süß malzig. Geschmack süß malzig, etwas Karamell, rote Früchte.