0.33 bottle@Svijet piva. Golden orange, off white head, light, leaves lacing. Strong brett aroma, orange, citrus, fruits. Sour, light body, nice dry lasting finish. Very good.

Hazy amber, huge stable airy offwhite head. Fruity, bretty malty aroma. Flavour is light bretty with rough bitterness which almost suppresses some fruity and caramely sweetness. Very nice.

Bottle, 330 ml from Svijet Piva, Zagreb. Pours dark orange with huge off-white head. Nice light hoppy sweetish aroma. Light hoppy fruity bitterish flavor.

How: Bottle.
Where: Mogwai, Helsingborg.
Appearance: Hazy amber colour with an off-white head.
Aroma: Fruit, citrus, spices, yeast.
Body: Medium body and carbonation.
Flavour: Caramel, yeast, hops, a bit floral.

Trocken hefiger, leicht kaffeeartiger Antrunk. Steigende Bitterkeit, die aufgrund der Trockenheit weniger stark wirkt als sie eigentlich ist. Der Kaffee bleibt, die starke Bitterkeit gefällt. Erhöhte Karbonisierung. 12/12/9/11/10/11

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, some people say... This beer does not even try to hide the fact that it is an attempt at imitating the classic Orval. Difficult to judge without prejudice... Thickly lacing, frothy, fairly dense, yellowish white head, colour clear light amber with vivid sparkling, murky orangey brown with deposit, just like "the real thing" but perhaps a bit more messy than I am used to from actual Orval. Aroma indeed evokes Orval in a pretty accurate way; even difficult to grasp in words, let’s say I get hints of roasted peanuts, wet leather, sour yoghurt, gooseberries, fresh green apple, hay, unripe mango, cava, freshly ploughed earth in spring, subtle hints of dried tomato, lemon zest, black pepper, persimmon, fresh menure (but in a ’good’ Brett way, if you get my drift) and gin. Kicks off with a restrained estery fruitiness, mango, pear and sour berries, with a peppery and leafy hop bitterness already showing up at the first sip; strong, somewhat minerally carbo, crisp, over a nutty, toasted, lightly caramelly malt backbone, smooth body but a bit harsh due to the high carbo (which is the case in a young Orval as well), ’tangy’ Belgian yeast spiciness dancing around with a clear Brett presence; the peppery, leafy, earthy, ’deep’ hop bitterness which was already quite showy in the onset develops further and leaves your palate dried and bitter for a long time, even bitter root- or tonic water-like in the end. Looks like Orval and very nearly smells like one; I had several beers trying to rival this world classic so far, but it goes without saying it has not, to this point, been surpassed (not trying to be snobbish or chauvinistic here!), yet this one comes as close as it gets, in my humble opinion. I am convinced this one would age just as well too, with the ’animalistic’ Brett complexity doing its work in slowly replacing the hop bitters, but this one seems just a little more harsh than the real thing, being just a bit too generous with the hops and thereby disturbing the balance and refinement of this particular recipe a bit. Orval remains a class of its own, yet I do appreciate this bold attempt, just as much as I appreciated Mikkeller’s take on oude geuze last week - which, much in the same way, did not achieve the same amount of finesse and complexity the Belgian version had. Still, this beer did touch me (being an Orval afficionado): it almost reminded me of the bygone days when Orval itself was notably hoppier than today, even to the point where it was Belgium’s most hop bitter beer ever... But that was before IPA came along, of course. Nice work though, enjoyed tasting this. I’d love to taste this side by side with a real Orval - which is not all too difficult, considering this beer is now available at the Delhaize supermarkets, to my utter bewilderment. There is a certain arrogance about this, claiming the renowned craft brewers can pull magic and brew anything they want, but I’d rather consider this a hommage to one of the great, good ole Belgian classics. Great pastiche - and funny to see how they changed only the name meanwhile, so not the content, in reaction to the lawsuit Orval filed against them...