beerfestival Mol

Bottle (Petalax). Hazy orange color, small steady white head. Aroma has orange jam. Medium-bodied. Honeyish, riped fruits in the flavor. Quite full taste for 4.4% beer.

Bottled. Golden colour, mediumsized white head. Aroma is mild fruity notes with some herbs and quite sweet notes as well. Flavour is floral, some mild nectary and wooden sweetness along with mild yeastiness. Surprisingly bodied for being only 4.4 %.

Another of those Den Haene beers, making me a bit suspicious with the others in mind. Warm orangey blonde colour, clear with strong fizz, supporting a very thick and rocky, thickly cobweb lacing, irregular, off-white head; becomes misty with deposit, as expected from a bottle-fermented Belgian. Weakish aroma of cookie dough, orange peel, grass, pancakes, dried nettles, wet cloth, caramel candy, raspberry, bubblegum, minerals. Crisp onset with high effervescence, a bit much actually, classic Belgian yeast fruitiness (pineapple, green apple, some banana, unripe berries), spicy yeast hints, and then, alas: the same weird aspartame-like ’pharmaceutical’ sweetishness as in their Trammelantje, overlying a soft, lean cookie-like malt sweetishness. Finish is merely a continuation of this, with a dash of grassy, superficial, insufficiently effective hop bitterishness added; the lack of real hoppiness makes for a somewhat watery ending, with the almost glueish aspartame flavour lingering. Unusual, also because of the ABV which is definitely lower than average for a Belgian blonde; the aroma is quite distinctive, but that does not imply enjoyable. Granted, for a beer of this ABV, I guess one could call this an ’enkel’ (which - contrary to dubbel and tripel - never really made it to an established Belgian beer style), it still bears quite a lot of flavour, but this flavour is far from refined, has a weird aspartame-like quality to it like some of the other Haene beers and does not fit too well. If the aim was to make a refreshing summer beer with a light body and low ABV, why not use more hops? This beer can learn from the new session IPA movement, I think. In this form: acceptable, and that is all for me. At least I won’t get drunk from it, allowing me to taste a few more...

pours clear, blonde with an amber glow. Foam exists of big white bubbles, but collides almost instantly. Smell is grainy, with a sweet touch that reminds of honey, but isn’t. Taste is bitter. Nice malty back- again with the sweet character but it aint offputting. A mild touch of metallicness as well. Nice, bit bitter ending. Mild malts and some hoparoma. Not bad. Very tasty for the ABV. Just a touch to much carbonation.

Fonefan 241014. Golden colour with a white head. Aroma is fruit, malt, hop, yeast. Flavour is fruit, malt, hop, yeast, sugar, grass. Medium body. Ordinary beer.

Bottle 330ml. [ As Strubbe Vlissegems Blondje den Haene ].Clear medium yellow orange color with a average to large, frothy, good lacing, mostly to fully lasting, off-white to white head. Aroma is moderate malty, pale malt, fruity - apple, moderate yeasty. Flavour is moderate to light light heavy sweet with a average duration, sweet malt, fruity malt, yeast. Body is medium, texture is oily to watery, carbonation is soft. [20141024]

Bottle. It pours a dense, off-white head leaving some lacings over a clear, golden body. The aroma is quite weak, with hay, grass and pale malts, some sugary notes too. It’s rather weak in the flavor too, with a decent bitterness. Quite dry, with a nice carbonation level. Hay, grass and some pale malts. Short fruity and hay-ish finish. Boring and uninteresting. 141024