Earlier Rating: 12/10/2017 Total Score: 4

Bottle looks really good. Beer in the glass zippy, nice head. Starts fine hoppy, flowery, a bit soapy. Finish milder, still a bit soapy. Okay.

Fles thuis geprobeerd. Het is een troebel roodbruin bier met een volle schuimkraag. Het heeft een fruitige zoete geur. De smaak is hoppig, zoet en peperachtig.

Paper wrapped 33cl bottle; BB 1st Mar 2020. Drank at home on 10th Oct 2018. Really enjoyed the bitterness of this IPA (after drinking four different lager/pilsener style beers). Slight haze to the dark amber body, full off-white crown that hung around for a while. Aroma had a malty front, but there was also some resin/pine and mild citrus esters from the hops. The hops take over the taste to good effect, liked it.

🏖️🌬️🌊

Hobo-bottle. Murky orange, golden head. Barrel-aged aromatics?? Medium body, lightly fizzy carbonation. Bready, light fruity, oxidized/wooden notes, some almonds, getting some bitterness but not the typical Sorachi Ace dill characteristics. Not 100% sure the right beer is in the bottle, but it is pleasant enough.

One of these weirdly un-German beers by the Rügener Insel-Brauerei, an IPA made with malted wheat and hopped with Sorachi Ace (apparently other versions are being made with different hops) and bottle conditioned... Like the Belgian style dubbel and tripel I had from them, this comes from a paper-wrapped bottle bought at an Albert Heijn supermarket. Fairly thick, regularly shaped, egg-white, hardly lacing yet relatively well-retaining head, with gaps appearing in the middle shortly after pouring; lightly hazy, deep orange blonde robe with amberish hue. Aroma of fresh, green dill (which I use regularly especially in fish dishes - very recognizable here as the main feature of the Sorachi Ace, even more so than in most other beers with this hop variety I had to date) but in a volatile way and sharply decreasing in clarity as the beer breathes, soggy biscuit, apricot, burning rubber (probably DMTS), stale armpit sweat, pond water, roasted bell peppers, barbecue sauce, pink peppercorns, parsley root, white cabbage, dried grapefruit peel, old cardboard, very old dry horseradish. Fruity onset, bit estery with notes of dried peach, apple peel and a slight banana accent, sweetish in a restrained way with the expected sourish undertone, medium carbonated with a slick, supple body. The carbon dioxide leaves behind minerally notes over a softish bread crust-like maltiness with thin peanutty edges as well as an underlying soft soapiness from the malted wheat, while the hop factor grows and grows, ending in a spicy yet not overly harsh, bit rooty and earthy hop bitterness. The green dill element returns retronasally, reminding one of the fact that this is indeed hopped with Sorachi Ace, but the bitterness, though stretched over quite some length, remains relatively gentle and allows room for juicy, soggy bread maltiness to pass through, as well as some spicy (mildly phenolic) and earthy yeasty notes. Seen the fact that this brewery has been selling a dubbel and tripel in very Belgian fashion to this supermarket chain, it should come as no surprise that this is, in terms of style, a Belgian IPA rather than an 'international' one: the earthy, bready, phenolic and estery yeastiness mixes with the aromatic properties of the Sorachi Ace in a way that I think many IPA afficionados will find clashing. Clearly not the freshest bottle - didn't expect that from a supermarket shelf anyway - but even then, this suffers a bit from its 'Belgian' yeast profile even if made in Germany, as well as from certain sulfuric aromas which are not too inviting to the nose. Definitely very un-German: this is the second non-Belgian beer in a row I have tonight which I would immediately situate in Belgium if tasted blind. I guess there is some merit to that, but being Belgian myself, I see no reason to rate this differently than if it would have been made by some smaller Belgian producer. Too yeasty and sulfuric, but given the fact that this is, to me as a consumer in Belgium, a supermarket beer and that it is clearly past its prime, I will not be too harsh on it. And I have to admit that this brewery's approach in tackling non-German styles (they apparently have a bunch of old school English beer styles in their range as well) keeps puzzling me, I expect an IPA from the Albert Heijn to be Dutch, much more than German...

Bottle @ friend. Murky yellow to orange colour with a medium sized white head. Smells and tastes sweet, bread, dough, yeasty. Pretty weird for an ipa. Not a great success. Medium body, soft carbo.

Thuis uit een flesje. Mooi ingepakt, stijlvol. Troebele donkeroranje kleur, mooi schuim. In de smaak vind ik dit echter geen ipa, valt een beetje tegen, wat flauw.

0.33 l bottle, best before June 2019. Hazy, dark reddish amber with a medium large, foamy, stable, off-white head. Sweetish, fruity-grassy aroma of lemongrass, grapefruit, mango and some spruce. Slightly sweet, moderately bitter, fruity-grassy and slightly resiny taste of lemongrass, ginger, mango, grapefruit and some spruce, followed by a medium long, rather dry-bitter, herbal-grassy and slightly resiny finish. Medium body, fairly effervescent mouthfeel, average to lively carbonation. Fairly bland IPA, quite bitter but not overly aromatic, too much carbonation as well.