The 2016 edition of this Belgian IPA, apparently making use of all the hop varieties grown by De Plukker. From a 75 cl bottle shared with the girlfriend at De Planck in Ghent. Medium thick, foamy and frothy, papery lacing, egg-white, stable head over a hazy peach blonde beer with amberish tinge. Aroma of dried orange zest, apricot, pear, fresh kitchen herbs (basil?), wet peanuts, very dark honey, aniseed, caramel, pineapple, hay. Estery-fruity onset, peachy with notes of pineapple and banana, sharp and somewhat numbing (over)carbonation, sourish accent, bready and bit 'fluffy' malt sweetness with a caramelly edge; herbal and spicy, earthy hop bitter finish, phenolic and estery yeasty like the earlier editions of the same beer, with clove- and anise-like impressions mingling with the hayish, floral, grassy and slightly citrus peel-like aspects of the hops; malt sweetness lingers, highlighted by a subtle alcohol glow. I will not go into the discussion about Belgian attempts at IPA being too yeasty again, this is a fine beer like the other editions, just do not expect a clean, tropical American style hop bomb, rather a very decent, interesting, earthy Belgian ale with above average hopping - and in that respect, this works perfectly fine for me.

Sampled at VCBF 2017. Thnx for sharing Eugene and Tim ! Pours clear blonde, small white head. Smell is bit sharp, mild medicinal. Taste is bit sharp, mild grassy. Don’t love it.

Imported from my RateBeer account as De Plukker All Inclusive IPA 2016 (by De Plukker):
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 7/10, Palate: 4/5, Overall: 14/20, MyTotalScore: 3.6/5

23/III/17 - 33cl bottle from Dranken Geers (Oostakker) @ home - BB: V/2018 (2017-404)

Clear orange beer, creamy irregular yellow head, stable, adhesive. Aroma: malty, sweet, caramel, some strawberry jam, banana, yeast, some peaches. sweet, malty, pretty sugary, lots of banana, yeast, some caramel. Aftertaste: sweet, some alcohol, soft bitterness, bit metallic, banana peel. By no means is this an ipa, it's a decent beer though!

Bottle 750ml from Dranken Geers, Oostakker, Nr Gent, Belgie consumed at home Thursday 24th November 2016 Pours hazy warm gold, orangey amber with a white sticky head. Spritzy, spicy nose, quite sweet, but there is a pleasant hoppiness and a clingy bitterness, hoppy burps. Great beer, fruity, dry, it’s a really nice beer. A7 A4 T8 P3 Ov15 3.7

From bottle. Pours hazy yellow with a small white head. Aroma is frui and slight toasted malty. Sweet and toasted. Mello fruity and crisp hoppy. Bitter and toasted. Fruity finish.

From a 75 cl bottle, as the 2015 version. Very thick and frothy, beaten egg-white, dense and cobweb-lacing head, misty peach blonde robe with orangey hue and lively fizz piercing through. Aroma has doubtlessly weakened a bit after several months of storage, but still yields fresh hoppy fragrance, with impressions of fresh orange, pink grapefruit, mandarin peel, chamomille, freshly cut grass, raw cucumber, melon, wet hay, sweetbread, jute, unripe peach, lime zest, white pepper and toast. Crisp, refreshing onset, nice balanced fruitiness with hints of orange, green banana, apricot and lychee, spritzy carbo but agreeable for the style, sweetish but not overly so, evolving effortlessly into a supple, soft, caramelly and bready malt sweetness with a slight bitterly toasted edge, while some fruity esters continue; hop bitterness builds up very gradually, drying the palate ever more, producing lovely retronasal aromas of citrus peel, flowers and hay along with the esters and weak spicy phenols; its bittering power is thorough but earthy and soft at the same time, lasting quite long and leaving a pleasant spiciness in the back of the mouth, while juicy, bready malt sweetness passes through as well as a residual white candi sugar-like sweetness. There is a clear amount of warming, ’jenever’-like alcohol at the back, but it does not interfere too much with the malts and hops; so does, however, a typically Belgian yeast bitterness which really has no business here at this point. Very Belgian in most respects (apart from the hops): this is a typical example of ’Belgian IPA’, a new category which I think should be recognized here, as too many people seem disappointed with Belgian-brewed IPAs simply because they expect the clean, non-estery profile of Anglo-Saxon yeast cultures. This one is much more a new style ’tripel hop’ than a real IIPA: though it uses a big amount of new hop varieties well in balance with a sweet malt backbone, there are far too many Belgian yeast properties (esters and phenols) going on here to be ranked among the international DIPA style. I would recommend tasting this with ’tripel’ in mind instead of IPA, and if viewed that way, this to me is a technically well-made, hoppy Belgian ale with high drinkability (dangerously so even, seen its ABV).

Leicht trübes dunkel goldgelbes Bier mit einer mittelgroßen weißen Schaumkrone. Geruch mild hopfig, helle Früchte, leicht floral. Geschmack süß malzig, fruchtig hopfig, Bonbons.

2016