Filou

Bottle, 8.5%. Aroma of hay. Clear golden colour. Small stable white head. The flavour also has a bit of hay. Good alcohol level. Dryish finish. Medium bitterness. Slightly puckering finish. Reminds me of Duvel, perhaps because of the label? Still, nice enough.

Bottle. Pours clear golden with airy but stable white head. Clear aroma of hops and flowers, with fruity notes and estery touches. Sweetish flavour of malt and fruit, with notes of yeast and hoppy and flowery touches. Sweetish aftertaste with slightly acidic hints. Spicy touches. Nice.

Bottled 330ml. -from Svijet Piva Zagreb. Clear golden coloured, medium sized white head, whiff of alcohol in the nose. Moderate sweet malty, light spicy and fruity with notes of alcohol and pretty strong carbonation. Had better had worse.

Bottled@PBF X. Small white head on a golden body. Aroma is floral, some yeast and mild earth. Flavour is fruity, floral, mild citrusy notes along with some alcohol and mild yeasty notes.

Bottle as a gift. Golden colour, white foam. Lively carbonation. Sweet malty with notes of peach and citrus. Light bitter finish. Lacks a bit of character. Ok.

Van Honsebrouck’s new ’edelbier’, the name, bottle, ABV and appearance of which alone already give away that this is an attempt at rivalling Duvel (and I am surprised Belgian brewers still try to do that nowadays). Bottle from Van Eetvelde in Lokeren. Thick, snow white, moussy, thickly lacing head over a cristal clear golden beer with calm fizz, clearly a lot less vivid than Duvel (I cannot stop comparing this with the devil, apparently...). Aroma of fried Granny Smith apples, bubblegum ’à volonté’ (or some other ’petrochemical candy’), sugared rhubarb, banana liqueur, minerals, white bread, iron, faint hint of freshly cut basil, honey, canned apricot, white candi sugar, some plastic-like solvents - not very inviting because of all the sweetness, in fact I’m beginning to dread the taste. Which proves to be justified: very crisp and spritzy in onset with the carbonation distracting from what is happening underneath, i.e. quite some fruity esters, especially sweet banana but adding some pineapple, red apple peel and dried orange peel, minerally with a smooth, supple body, quite full even, based on bready malt sweetishness with a honeyish edge; in the finish, that same weird banana sweetness pops up retronasally, along with a dash of grassy hops, but not deeply bittering at all, just providing a bit of structure - albeit insufficiently so to counter the sticky banana-bubblegum and white candi sweetness. A warming, even somewhat burning glow of slightly liqueurish, at a certain point even dissolvent-like alcohol rounds things off and leaves a very lightly astringent feeling on the root of the tongue. The aforementioned artificial sweetness remains, with a little bit of hop bitterishness around it, but so do the plastic-like solvents. Too chemical, too alcoholic and, above all, way too sweet: this is like a paler, less strong version of that awful Kasteel Tripel. Unrefined, as usual with this brewery, but I guess it can fuel indiscriminating alcoholics, already an audience for Kasteel, so it will probably not harm Van Honsebrouck’s turnover, I reckon. As for style: sorry, I had too many Duvel epigones lacking finesse and good taste. Give me the real thing any time, but I will never have this bubblegum abomination again.

Bottle @ home. Clear golden color, medium sized white head. Smell and taste lightly malts, Belgian hops, lightly sweetish, slightly some herbs or spices. Medium body and carbonation. Typical standard Belgian blonde beer.